Skip to main content

This auction has ended. View lot details

You may also be interested in

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

PIPPIN UNREVISED PROOFS INSCRIBED TO RHODE ISLAND BOOKSELLER, ELSIE CLOUGH. STEINBECK, JOHN. 1902-1968. The Short Reign of Pippin IV. New York: The Viking Press, [1957]. image 1
PIPPIN UNREVISED PROOFS INSCRIBED TO RHODE ISLAND BOOKSELLER, ELSIE CLOUGH. STEINBECK, JOHN. 1902-1968. The Short Reign of Pippin IV. New York: The Viking Press, [1957]. image 2
Lot 79

PIPPIN UNREVISED PROOFS INSCRIBED TO RHODE ISLAND BOOKSELLER, ELSIE CLOUGH.
STEINBECK, JOHN. 1902-1968.
The Short Reign of Pippin IV. New York: The Viking Press, [1957].

25 October 2023, 14:00 EDT
New York

US$3,000 - US$5,000

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

How to sell

Looking for a similar item?

Our Books & Manuscripts specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.

Find your local specialist

Ask about this lot

PIPPIN UNREVISED PROOFS INSCRIBED TO RHODE ISLAND BOOKSELLER, ELSIE CLOUGH.

STEINBECK, JOHN. 1902-1968. The Short Reign of Pippin IV. New York: The Viking Press, [1957].
Tall 4to. Pale yellow wrappers with printed and typed labels, spiral bound. Pages toned, corners bumped, covers darkened and worn at extremities.
Provenance: Collection of David Heyler: by descent.

UNREVISED GALLEY PROOFS, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED on the inside front cover: "Dear Elsie Clough: / This book was ghost written in the truest sense of the world. An imp crept down my arm and played in the ink. Don't turn me in please/ Yours / John Steinbeck." A true unrevised copy (the title character's name is spelled "Peppen" on p 1), this copy bears two hand emendations to the labels: the printed label has publication date corrected from March to April; the typed label has the price corrected from $2.95 to $3.00.

Elsie Clough ran The Book Shop of Providence, RI from 1922 to 1963 (her last day of business was November 22, the day Kennedy was shot). Steinbeck may have been rewarding Clough and other booksellers for years of championing his work: another copy of the unrevised proof of Pippen inscribed to Cleveland booksellers Bob and Anne Levine (with a similar message mentioning imps) was sold in these rooms in 2012. Included with the lot is an essay by Elsie Clough looking back on her long career, published in the 1964 issue of Yankee Magazine. "Extremely scarce, especially in inscribed state. No copies discovered by Goldstone and Payne" (Morrow 240).

Additional information

Bid now on these items

A Presentation Copy of Kennedy's First Book to Spencer Tracy. Kennedy, John F. 1917-1963. Why England Slept. New York: Wilfred Funk, Inc., 1940.

Signed to Spencer Tracy 1952 Hemingway, Ernest. 1899-1961. The Old Man and the Sea, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1952.

CORNELIUS, MATTHEWS, editor. 1817-1889. The Enchanted Moccasins and Other Legends of the American Indians.