Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Erskine Caldwell. The Bastard. Heron Press, 1929.
Price: US$50.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Very good hardcover. Straight secure spine with tight hinges and clean interior. Copy 513 of 1000. Pages are toned due to age.
Seller: Tall Stories Book & Print Gallery, ROCK HILL, SC, U.S.A.
Caldwell, Erskine (SIGNED). The Bastard. Heron Press, NY, 1929.
Price: US$75.00 + shipping
Condition: Fair
Description: covers and spine are in poor shape, binding copy, # 193 of 200 signed copies by BOTH author and Illustrator some of the pages are VERY SLIGHTLY wrinkled in the lower corner
Seller: Robert S. Brooks, Bookseller, Bristol, WI, U.S.A.
Erskine Caldwell. The Bastard. Heron Press Inc, New York, 1929.
Price: US$100.00 + shipping
Description: Raw untamed Cardwell narrative of a tough guy who is in fact a Bastard. Great hard boiled descriptions and dialogue, inspirations for John Fante and Charles Bukowski. Orignial purple cloth many erotic illustrations and no dj. faded spine as usual. signed by the artist Ty Mahon.
Seller: Hirschfeld Galleries, Saint Louis, MO, U.S.A.
Caldwell, Erskine. The Bastard. Heron Press, 1929.
Price: US$150.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: Copy 437 of a limited edtion. Cover shows minor wear and rubbing, fading. Inscribed and SIGNED by the author on a blank prelim. Pages are lightly tanned and clean.
Seller: Books From California, Simi Valley, CA, U.S.A.
Price: US$220.00 + shipping
Description: Limited to 200 signed copies printed on American Handcraft and bound in balloon cloth of which this is no. 10. Octavo (25.5cm.); original purple gilt-lettered cloth; 199pp.; frontispiece and 5 plates; title page printed within purple decorative border. Extremities a bit rubbed, spine a few shades faded though the gilt is still vibrant; some minor soiling to fore-edge of a few leaves, else interior fine. Very Good and sound, signed by the author and illustrator on colophon. Caldwell's first book.
Seller: Lorne Bair Rare Books, ABAA, Winchester, VA, U.S.A.
Caldwell,Erskine. The Bastard. Illustrations by Ty Mahon.. New York: Heron Press Inc.,, 1929.
Price: US$220.20 + shipping
Condition: Poor
Description: [First edition] 1100 copies of "The Bastard" have been printed in Calson Old Face; numbers 1 to 200 on American Handcraft, bound in balloon cloth; 201 to 1100 on Mellow Book, bound in Holliston Cloth. This copy is No.527. 199pp. Purple cloth with gilt title on spine & front cover. Covers sunned. Sl.damp stained on upper part of covers. All edges partly sunned. Sl.spotted on rear gutter. Front & rear ep. sl.sunned. Water spotted on lower margin of 16-78pp. & 145-158pp. & 195-199pp. Sl.spotted on gutter & margin of some pages. 25.4x16.7cm. [f1055-171147]
Seller: Ogawa Tosho,Ltd. ABAJ, ILAB, Chiyoda-ku, TOKYO, Japan
Price: US$275.00 + shipping
Description: One of 900 numbered copies on Mellow Book, bound in Holliston Cloth (of a total edition of 1100). Inscribed on front free endpaper to American poet and editor Richard Johns. Octavo (25.5cm.); original purple gilt-lettered cloth; 199pp.; frontispiece and 5 plates; title page printed within purple decorative border. Unprinted acetate protector. Spine and covers heavily sunned, with faint dampstain to cloth at base of spine; text slightly aged with a few faint spots of foxing to prelims. A sound but unattractive copy, no better than Good, its flaws mostly hidden by a later custom board slipcase. A significant association copy of Caldwell's first book. Johns (1904-1970) was at this time the editor of Pagany, a short-lived but influential experimental magazine in which Caldwell succeeded in placing a number of early stories. Caldwell's and Johns's correspondence, held at the University of Delaware, "highlights," in the words of one critic, how this literary friendship helped Caldwell "find his way into the contemporary American canon.and reveals some surprising tastes, including admiration for William Carlos Williams and John Dos Passos, as well as dozens of lesser known authors." (Dan B. Miller, Review of Erskine Caldwell and the Fiction of Poverty by Sylvia Jenkins Cook. In The Southern Literary Journal, vol. 25, no 2 (Spring 1993).
Seller: Lorne Bair Rare Books, ABAA, Winchester, VA, U.S.A.
Price: US$425.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: 199 pp + illustrations, with frontispiece. A hors commerce copy from the special edition of 200 printed on American Handcraft paper, bound in balloon cloth, and signed by author and illustrator on limitation page. Rather than being numbered, this copy is designated "B" and was presumably an author's presentation copy, as it is additionally inscribed (without salutation) "with best wishes for a successful year with the N.Y. Soc. for Sup. of Vice / from [name uncertain] and myself / Erskine Caldwell." It seems likely that this inscription dates from a few years after the publication date. Although The Bastard was successfully banned for obscenity in Caldwell's adopted home town of Portland, Maine, it was not until 1933, with the publication of God's Little Acre, that he became a target of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. Apparently the recipient of this copy didn't care to actually read the book, as many of the pages remain unopened. Mild sunning to spine, one small blemish to upper corner of front board, otherwise minimal wear; in a protective mylar cover.
Seller: Walkabout Books, ABAA, Curtis, WA, U.S.A.