Steinbeck (John) America and Americans, original typescript, annotated by the author, 1966

Steinbeck (John) America and Americans, original typescript, 146pp., preserved in brown wrappers, clamp binding, note from the author "Second carbon | of | Second typescript" on upper cover, this slightly trimmed and affecting inscription, light finger-soiling, some offsetting, edges bumped, covers rubbed, 4to, [1966]. *** The last work published in Steinbeck's lifetime. In 1964, the new head of Steinbeck’s publisher Viking, Thomas H. Guinzburg, approached Steinbeck with the idea of writing a preface for a photobook: “John approached the project with the understanding that it would be a short ‘commercial’ job that he could do in a couple of weeks, but as he became more involved, what had started out in his mind as a sort of ‘booklet’ was transformed into a collection of essays to accompany the photos....” (Benson 955). Frustrated with this project, Steinbeck threw himself into America and Americans, completing what he would consider the final title in his moral trilogy that includes The Winter of our Discontent and Travels with Charley. America and Americans is really a companion piece to Travels with Charley, containing further reflections which didn’t make it into the earlier work. The introduction notes that “For centuries America and the Americans have been the target for opinions – Asiatic, African and European – only these opinions have been called criticism, observation, or, God help us, evaluation. Unfortunately, Americans have allowed these foreign opinions the value set on them by their writers. For our part, we have denounced, scalded, celebrated and lied about facets and bits and pieces of our own country and countrymen; but I know of no native work of inspection of our whole nation and its citizens by a blowed-in-the-glass American."Provenance: The Mary Steinbeck Dekker Family Collection.