ARROWSMITH.
New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, [1925]. Original dark blue cloth lettered in orange.
First Trade Edition, preceded only by a 500-copy limited edition. This was the third of Lewis's great novels of the decade, after MAIN STREET and BABBITT and before ELMER GANTRY and DODSWORTH. ARROWSMITH won the Pulitzer Prize, but Lewis declined the award. This is the tale of Martin Arrowsmith, medical doctor, who settles first in Wheatsylvania, South Dakota, next in Nautilus, Iowa, then in Chicago, and finally at a research clinic in New York City -- "hoping to find in altruistic research the relief he desires from publicity-seeking and money-grabbing commercial medicine" [OCAL]. But he falls out of favor when he administers his cure for a plague indiscriminately, in order to save lives, thus ruining the results of the experiment -- and ultimately winds up back in rural America, this time in Vermont.
This copy is in very good condition (the usual fading of the spine, minor edge-wear, slight cracking of the front endpaper). [Note: this copy came to us with a facsimile dust jacket, curiously NOT of a first edition, which we shall pass along if a buyer wishes.]. Item #14993
Price: $200.00