The Dust Which is God 1941 by William Rose Benet ~ First Edition ~ Pulitzer Prize

Title: The Dust Which is God

Author: William Rose Benet

Description: First Edition. Boards in buff colored cloth with brown lettering. Spine slightly rolled. Interior is clean and unmarked. Dust jacket has bumping and wear to head and tail of spine with chipping and closed tears. Dust jacket is chipped along top edge of both front and rear panels and shows general edge-wear; not price clipped ($3.50); long blurb by Christopher Morley on rear panel; in an archival mylar sleeve. xiii + 559 pages.

First edition of Benet's volume of semi-autobiographical poetry, which won him the 1942 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Written in blank verse, varied by free verse both rhymed and unrhymed, and interspersed with some of Benet's best lyrical work.

The opening pages reveal a sensitive youth at about the turn of the century, living fully the life of the times, listening to tales of the war with Spain, hearing his father read aloud to the family circle. As the story unfolds, the scene moves to California, back to Yale, and to the literary world of New York. Through deep human relationships and compelled by the circumstances of a writer's life, the hero, Raymond Fernandez, comes into close contact with dark tragedy as well as breath-taking beauty. The Dust Which is God conveys a moving and dramatic tale of youth, marriage, birth, death, manhood, and the seeking heart, and under the personal record moves the story of America emerging from a prosperous pioneer colossus to a half-blind giant of the machine age.

Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Very Good+
Jacket Condition: Good

Publisher: Dodd, Mead & Company
Place: New York
Year: 1941

Size: 5.75 x 9 inches.
Pages: 559 pages.

Keywords: Poetry, Pulitzer Prize