Elmer Gantry by LEWIS Sinclair - 1927

1927. First Edition . LEWIS, Sinclair. Elmer Gantry. New York: Harcourt, Brace, (1927). Octavo, original blue cloth, original dust jacket. Housed in a custom slipcase. $4000.First edition, very scarce first issue of the controversial bestseller by Nobel laureate Sinclair Lewis, whose works ""changed the shape of American culture"" (New York Times), in original dust jacket.Praised by H.L. Mencken, Lewis' controversial novel of religious hypocrisy ""was an instant bestseller… sales were further stimulated when Boston banned it and the evangelist Billy Sunday dubbed Lewis 'Satan's Cohort… A satire of American religious life, Elmer Gantry may be seen as a cautionary tale for 'born again' America"" (Parker, 121-22). In characters such as George Babbitt and Elmer Gantry, as well as Lewis' attack on fascism in It Can't Happen Here (1930), he ""changed the shape of American culture"" (New York Times). In 1930 Lewis became the first American author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Adapted to film in 1960 by director Richard Brooks, the film was nominated for five Oscars. First issue, with ""Cantry"" on book spine, uncorrected. Pastore 13, 31. Just a touch of soiling to rear panel of dust jacket. An about-fine copy, scarce and desirable in such exemplary condition.