Main Street. By Sinclair Lewis. Illustrated by Grant Wood. Illustrated Edition. Easton Press. Norwalk, 2000.

Set in the fictional small town of Gopher Prairie, Minnesota, Main Street satirizes small town life through the story of Carol Milford, a transplant who sets about a series of cultural, social, and political initiatives which are met with reticence by her fellow townspeople. It is widely considered Sinclair Lewis’s best novel. Lewis went on to become the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Main Street was also awarded the Pulitzer Prize, but the jury’s decision was overturned by the trustees who rejected Lewis’s novel on political grounds. This edition is paired with Grant Wood’s illustrations. Grant Wood was the most prominent Regionalist painter in the twentieth century. His portraits fit the text perfectly. 

This illustrated edition is in fine condition. In the original full leather, finely gilt stamped. Raised bands. Gilt spine label. Text block fine. Gilt edges. Silk moire endpapers and bookmark sewn in. With the publisher’s original pamphlet and blank bookplate laid in.

A fine collector’s copy of Main Street.