Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
LEWIS, Sinclair.. Elmer Gantry.. Harcourt, Brace, New York, 1927.
Price: US$850.00 + shipping
Description: 432 pp. 8vo, publisher' blue cloth. First edition, first binding. Ink notes to rear endpaper; orange on spine very effaced; tight and sound; a good to very good copy. A presentation copy, with a printed slip signed by Lewis and mounted to the front pastedown, indicating that he will be abroad on the date of publication and will be unable to inscribe books personally.
Seller: Jeffrey H. Marks, Rare Books, ABAA, Rochester, NY, U.S.A.
Lewis, Sinclair. Elmer Gantry. Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1927.
Price: US$1500.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1927; first issue of First Edition in dust jacket; flat-signed by Sinclair Lewis on title page; printed title box on spine as shown in Pastore 13. Binding is tight, sturdy, and square; very minor wear to edges of blue cloth boards, minor sunning to backstrip, orange printed titling on front board remains bold, printed title on spine has rubbed appearance, as is common in this issue; text is very good throughout. Moderate amount of wear to edges of jacket over spine, a few small closed tears "repaired" with scotch tape to verso; light dust soiling/smudging to rear jacket panel; light rubbing to jacket as well; jacket arrives wrapped in protective mylar. Ships from Dinkytown in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Seller: Book House in Dinkytown, IOBA, Minneapolis, MN, U.S.A.
Sinclair Lewis. ELMER GANTRY SIGNED. Harcourt, Brace & Company, New York, 1927.
Price: US$2499.00 + shipping
Description: Very Good+ in a Very Good clipped dust jacket. All 4 flap corners clipped, price remains. Owner bookplate on front pastedown. 3 inch tear down top FEP corner. Few small chips along panel edges. Shelf wear on rear panel. First issue with points of issue present including 'C' for 'G' in Gantry on the spine lettering. First issue dust jacket with the 2.50 price on the flap. ; Signed by Sinclair Lewis on FEP. ; Signed by Author.
Seller: Rare Book Cellar, Pomona, NY, U.S.A.
Price: US$2500.00 + shipping
Description: A later printing, ex-library copy with the bookplate of The Phillips Exeter Academy library on the front pastedown, stamped DISCARDED, of a book made into a film starring Burt Lancaster that won three Academy Awards. An undistinguished copy BUT for the fact that it belonged to James Agee with his SIGNATURE "J R Agee" dated March 1927 on the front free endpaper. This copy later belonged to Henry Darcy Curwen, of the Exeter English faculty, who signed his name below Agee's. In March 1927, Agee, at age 17, was in his "upper-middle" year (junior) at Exeter, an admirer of Sinclair Lewis and already committed to a literary career, submitting poems and stories to the Phillips Exeter Monthly. In one of his early letters to Father Flye (LETTERS OF JAMES AGEE TO FATHER FLYE, pages 27-28) dated Exeter 17 March 1927, Agee writes: "I've bought and read Elmer Gantry, the Lewis satire on religion. It's very disappointing, although excellent in spots. He's turning rancid." Reflecting his own psychological unease at the time, Agee soon expands this somewhat in one of his earliest published critical articles, a review of ELMER GANTRY in the Phillips Exeter Monthly 31 (May 1927): "It is one gigantic crescendo of walloping filthiness, and I have the feeling that it carried Mr. Lewis before it, and left him stranded where not even himself can work his salvation." Early signed Agee material is uncommon, and the important resonance of this copy with his beginning literary efforts can hardly be exaggerated. Good copy, lacking the dustwrapper. An Agee rarity
Seller: Charles Agvent, est. 1987, ABAA, ILAB, Fleetwood, PA, U.S.A.
LEWIS, Sinclair. Elmer Gantry. Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1927.
Price: US$2500.00 + shipping
Description: New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., Inc., [1927]. First edition, second issue binding (with "Gantry" spelled correctly on spine). Signed by the author on the front free endpaper. Octavo (7 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches; 189 x 133 mm). [viii], 1-432 pp. Original blue cloth. Front board and spine stamped and lettered in orange. Fore-edge uncut. In publisher's dust jacket. Jacket with some very minor rubbing to spine. Jacket with price intact, but corners clipped. Small bookseller label on rear paste down. Overall a near fine book in a near fine dust jacket. "Elmer Gantry (1927) attacked hypocrisy in the church. Gantry begins his career as a relatively sincere divinity student who is troubled by his strong sexual nature, but he becomes a hypocritical minister and, later, a jackleg traveling evangelist. Some ministers of the day approved of the book as an attack on genuine abuses within their profession, and literary gadfly H. L. Mencken praised its satire of corrupt fundamentalism. Many critics, however, viewed the book as obscene and its satire as overdone." (American Dictionary of National Biography). Lewis was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1930, just three years after the publication on Elmer Gantry. Pastore. HBS 67991. $2,500.
Seller: Heritage Book Shop, ABAA, Beverly Hills, CA, U.S.A.
Lewis, Sinclair. ELMER GANTRY. Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1927.
Price: US$4000.00 + shipping
Description: First edition of this scathing satire of fundamentalist Christianity in US America, with printed presentation slip signed by Lewis tipped onto the front endpaper. ELMER GANTRY was widely praised by critics and lambasted by members of the clergy. "Charlotte ministers were advised to refrain from their attack on art and sex magazines and concentrate upon getting ELMER GANTRY. off the press and newsstands" noted the CHARLOTTE OBSERVER; "The story is all fiction, with no reality in corresponding to actual life. Still newspapers are discussing it. it is one of the literary obsessions of Mr. Lewis that clergymen must continually be interested in girls' feet and ankles" observed the Sioux Falls ARGUS-LEADER (ironically in its "Weekly Meditation" column). A classic example of literary wasp nest-kicking. 7.5'' x 5.25''. Original blue cloth binding with orange lettering to front board and spine. First issue with "Cantry" to spine (Bruccoli & Clark). Original unclipped ($2.50) green, red, and black dust jacket. Fore-edge machine deckle. 432 pages. Small printed card signed by Lewis tipped onto front flyleaf with a postage stamp, expressing regrets that he was unable to inscribe the book. Publisher's advance review copy slip laid in. Dust jacket with careful restoration to edges and spine, a bit of soiling to rear panel. Binding corners and spine ends lightly bumped, a bit of shelfwear. Clean and bright: shows well. Very good plus in restored dust jacket.
Seller: Type Punch Matrix, Silver Spring, MD, U.S.A.
Lewis, Sinclair. Elmer Gantry. Harcourt Brace and Company, 1927.
Price: US$12500.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: First edition in about very good condition in a jacket which is dirt stained on the rear cover. This copy belonged to local Rabbi Henry Joseph Berkowitz with his signature on the front paper. Lewis has inscribed the book " from a fellow rabbi Sinclair Lewis, Portland Jan. 10 1942".
Seller: Ink, Portland, OR, U.S.A.