Human Comedy, The

New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1943. The Author's First Novel

SAROYAN, William. The Human Comedy. Illustrated by Don Freeman. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1943.

First edition, later printing (with no first edition statement and no price on dust jacket flap)

Octavo (8 15/16 x 5 3/8 in; 219 x 137 mm). 291, [1] pp. Headpieces.

Publisher's salmon cloth, lettered and with a vignette in black. Dust jacket spine slightly darkened, small tape repairs to head of spine and top folds. A fine copy in a very good dust jacket. Loosely inserted is the February Book-of-the-Month Club News flyer which discusses the book and the author, "...so that it can be pasted , if desired, to the flyleaf of the book."

"The place is Ithaca, in California's San Joaquin Valley. The time is World War II. The family is the Macauley's - a mother, sister, and three brothers whose struggles and dreams reflect those of America's second-generation immigrants. In particular, fourteen-year-old Homer, determined to become one of the fastest telegraph messengers in the West, finds himself caught between reality and illusion as delivering his messages of wartime death, love, and money brings him face-to-face with human emotion at its most naked and raw. Gentle, poignant and richly autobiographical, this delightful novel shows us the boy becoming the man in a world that even in the midst of war, appears sweeter, safer and more livable than our own." (Penguin Random House).

William Saroyan (1908-1981) was an Armenian-American novelist, playwright, and short story writer who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1940. The Human Comedy originated as a 240-page film script written for MGM. Saroyan was planning to produce and direct the film, but he was dropped from the project either because the script was too long or because a short film he directed as a test was not considered acceptable - or both. He walked off the lot, went home, and swiftly created a novelization, which was published just before the film came out. It was the March 1943 Book-of-the-Month Club selection, and became a best-seller a week after its release. Saroyan won the Academy Award for Best Story for the 1943 film, The Human Comedy starring Mickey Rooney and Frank Morgan.

Don Freeman (1908- 1978) was an American painter, printmaker, cartoonist, and an illustrator and writer of children's books.