Dos Passos, John - The 42nd Parallel - Harper & Brothers: New York, 1930 - First Edition / First Printing - “First Edition" stated on the copyright page as required in order to denote the first printing of the first edition.
“U. S. A. is the slice of a continent. U. S. A. is a group of holding companies, some aggregations of trade unions, a set of laws bound in calf, a radio network, a chain of moving picture theatres, a column of stockquotations rubbed out and written in by a W.U. boy on a blackboard, a public-library full of old newspapers and dogeared historybooks with protests scrawled on the margins in pencil. U. S. A. is the world’s greatest rivervalley fringed with mountains and hills, U. S. A. is a set of bigmouthed officials with too many bankaccounts. U. S. A. is a lot of men buried in their uniforms in Arlington Cemetery. U. S. A. is the letters at the end of an address…”
The book has an area of discoloration on the front, minor shelf wear, and with rubbing and chipping to the delicate paper label on the spine. The boards remain pleasingly straight, binding is square, and internally there is no writing or other markings. The dust jacket is lightly sunned, has minor soiling, a tear to the lower rear, and a handful of shallow chips. A still rather presentable example of an uncommon and fragile dust jacket. The first installment in Dos Passos’ masterpiece U.S.A. trilogy. While copies of 1919 and Big Money are still able to be sourced copies of The 42nd Parallel have become increasingly uncommon in the jacket.