The Job: An American Novel
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1917. First Edition. Hard Cover. Good / No Jacket. Item #2321511
First edition, first state (no Main Street promo page). Lacks scarce jacket. Boards a bit rubbed with minimal loss from spine head, top edge and rear endpapers faintly foxed, rear hinge just beginning to weaken, two tiny spots on fore edge.
326, [1] pp. 8vo. Olive cloth, gilt titles. Author's third book. Lewis was the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. "The Job is an early work by American novelist Sinclair Lewis. It is considered an early declaration of the rights of working women. The focus is on the main character, Una Golden, and her desire to establish herself in a legitimate occupation while balancing the eventual need for marriage. The story takes place in the early 1900-1920s and takes Una from a small Pennsylvania town to New York. Forced to work due to family illness, Una shows a talent for the traditional male bastion of commercial real estate and, while valued by her company, she struggles to achieve the same status of her male coworkers. On a parallel track, her quest for traditional romance and love is important but her unique role as a working woman, doing a man's job, makes it tough to find an appropriate suitor. Una is on track to marry Walter Babson, who appears to be a good man but lacks the excitement of her eventual husband, Edward Schwirtz. He is a salesman with all the charm necessary to win her heart, but the marriage is doomed from the start. Una eventually divorces him, which is also scandalous for the time. As the book closes, Una continues unsuccessfully to salvage both her career and her personal life. Sinclair Lewis, was the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Possibly the greatest satirist of his age, Lewis wrote novels that present a devastating picture of middle-class American life in the 1920s. Although he ridiculed the values, the lifestyles, and even the speech of his characters, there is often affection behind the irony."
Price: $300.00