Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Anderson, Sherwood. Poor White. B. W. Huebsch, Inc., New York, NY, 1920.
Price: US$39.95 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: First Edition, second issue, without color to the top page block. Tightly bound in pale blue cloth. The spine titles are age-darkened (or lacking gilt) however still readable. Light edge wear including 1/8" chip at top of spine. The front endpaper includes a small label from one of Chicago's most famous antiquarian booksellers, Fanny Butcher. The contents are clean except for 2 small spots on the front endpaper.
Seller: Bookworks, Chicago, IL, U.S.A.
Anderson, Sherwood. Poor White; A Novel. B. W. Huebsch, New York, 1920.
Price: US$85.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: 8vo 8" - 9" tall; 371 pages; 1st state. In publisher's original blue cloth with publisher's colophon in blind to cover; gilt title lettering at spine dulled but legible. 1st state with top edge colored a light aqua blue. Attractive bookplate to front pastedown of noted Dunsany collector, Montgomery Evans II. Sound clean copy with light shelf rub to cloth at spine ends and usual dulling of titles at spine. VG-
Seller: DogStar Books, Lancaster, PA, U.S.A.
Anderson, Sherwood. Poor White. B. W. Huebsch, New York, 1920.
Price: US$111.37 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Blue cloth binding with blind-stamped publisher's device (Colophon) on front cover and top page edges blue. Gold printing on spine. Corners slightly bumped and the smallest bit of fading to spine. Former owner address label inside front cover pastedown (at bottom). Unclipped DJ with inside DJ spine and flap reinforced with masking tape. The tape has darkened the outside of DJ over the years. Original $2.00 price on DJ spine. Book review on front DJ cover. Rear DJ cover lists books by Anderson (Winesburg, Ohio and this one), James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, and others. 371 pp. in the very Rare Dustjacket.
Seller: Barry's Books, San Antonio, TX, U.S.A.
ANDERSON, Sherwood. Poor White. B.W. Huebsch, Inc, New York, 1920.
Price: US$192.50 + shipping
Description: First Printing, second issue, without topstain. Octavo (19cm); blue cloth, with titles stamped in gilt on spine; dustjacket; 371pp. Touch of sunning to spine, gilt slightly dulled, light foxing to upper edge of text, with moderate spotting to pastedowns and endpapers; Very Good+. Dustjacket has subtle fading to spine, a few tiny nicks to the crown, with light dust-soil to panels; Very Good+, and considerably better than usually encountered. Anderson's fifth book, a novel centering around the rise of a poor white Tennessee farm worker who became a rich industrialist, the result of an agricultural machinery invention. The book also contains strong strike elements towards the end, where a last-ditch effort is made by factory workers to resist the juggernaut of materialism. The strike ultimately fails, and the protagonist recognizes "that individuality, creativity and dignity have all been swept away by the victory of the Machine Age." BLAKE p.240. COAN p.80.
Seller: Lorne Bair Rare Books, ABAA, Winchester, VA, U.S.A.
Price: US$245.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Inscribed by the Author on the front free endpaper, small 8vo (7 1/2" x 5 1/4"), blue cloth without publisher's light blue topstain, 371 pages. INSCRIBED & SIGNED by the Author! Solid copy with no notes or markings by previous owners. Moderate wear and soil to cloth & edgewear. Upper right corner of cover slightly bumped causing a slight curl to about a dozen pages. Some scattered light foxing. Very faded gilt on spine. No dust jacket though protective clear mylar added. Poor White followed the success of Anderson's highly praised Winesburg, Ohio (1919), and was itself considered one of the author's better novels. Martin Seymour-Smith has called Poor White "his best novel." It relates with clear and sensitive prose the rise of a boy raised haphazardly by a drunken father; then transplanted to the care of a New England-bred second "mother" in a poor town on the mudflats of the western Missori shoreline of the Mississippi River. Anderson has a nuanced quasi-autobiographical view overlapping--among others-- Mark Twain's as the protagonist gradually manages to get some education, self mastery, and rise as an inventor. First Edition, Second Issue without publisher's light blue topstain.
Seller: Borg Antiquarian, Lake Forest, IL, U.S.A.
ANDERSON, Sherwood. Poor White. B. W. Huebsch, New York, 1920.
Price: US$350.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: Octavo, 371pp. Either first or second issue, as we are unable to determine on this worn copy whether there is a faint blue topstain or not, due to dust-soiling. Regardless, a first printing with no subsequent printings stated on the copyright page. A somewhat shaken copy, in good condition at best in the publisher's blue cloth. General wear to extremities, with a few stains to the boards, and lacking the dust jacket. Rear free endpaper mostly torn out. Nevertheless a wonderful example, SIGNED and INSCRIBED by Anderson to his first wife, Cornelia. It was during his marriage to Cornelia (who mothered all three of his children) that Anderson experienced his infamous "nervous breakdown," and after which he had trouble maintaining a steady family and working life. Despite this, all of his writing and fame came after this moment, and it was clearly a pivotal event in his writing life. This copy emerged (many years ago) from the estate of Mimi Anderson, daughter of Sherwood and Cornelia, then though the book trade. Though wanting in terms of condition, nevertheless an important copy of one of Anderson's best books, and evidence of his continued affection for Cornelia several years after their divorce. It shouuld be noted that signed first printings are also uncommon in the trade, regardless of any association.
Seller: Cleveland Book Company, ABAA, Rocky River, OH, U.S.A.
Anderson, Sherwood. Poor White. Huebsch, New York, 1920.
Price: US$350.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: The first American, published by Huebsch in 1920. Bound in publisher's blue cloth; a near fine example with just a trace of wear to the the edges of the cloth. Dust jacket very good with some wear to the folds and chipping to the spine ends. Fingernail sized chip to base of theb front panel.
Seller: The Reluctant Bookseller, Albany, NY, U.S.A.
Anderson, Sherwood (1876-1941). Poor White. B W Huebsch, Inc, New York, 1920.
Price: US$850.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: 371 pages. Small octavo (7 1/2" x 5 1/4") bound in original publisher's blue cloth with gilt-stamped spine title, blind-stamped colophon on front board, light aqua stain on top page edges in original jacket. Signed by the author. First edition, first printing. Poor White belongs among the few books that have restored with memorable vitality the life of an era, its hopes and desires, its conflicts between material prosperity and ethics, and its disillusionments, in a manner that stimulates the historical imagination . No novel of the American small town in the Middle West evokes in the minds of its readers so much of the cultural heritage of its milieu as does Poor White; nor does Anderson in his later novels ever recapture the same richness of association, the ability to make memorable each scene in the transition from an agrarian way of living to a twentieth-century spectacle of industrial conflict with its outward display of physical comfort and wealth. Condition: Signed on half title. Spine head chipped, corners and front heal edge bumped, spine sunned and dulled, edges sunned. Jacket spine ends and corners chipped, some edge chips with closed tears, spine age tone else a good copy in a very good scarce jacket.
Seller: The Book Collector, Inc. ABAA, ILAB, Fort Worth, TX, U.S.A.