[INSCRIBED] [1ST ED] On Native Grounds: An Interpretation of Modern American Prose Literature

Hardcover first edition with dust jacket of this classic volume of American literary criticism, completed by Kazin at age 27. A reviewer for the NY Times, Orville Prescott, deemed the book "an ambitious work of critical revaluation" that elevated the youthful Kazin to "the first rank of American practitioners of the higher literary criticism." Included in the wide-ranging discussion were thought-leaders such as Thorsten Veblen, Vernon Parrington, Charles Beard, John Dewey, H.L. Mencken, and Van Wycks Brooks, and prose writers such as Sinclair Lewis, Ernest Hemingway, Joseph Wood Crutch, Theodore Dreiser, John Steinbeck, Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, and John Dos Passos. With an inscription by Kazin dated to 1942, the year of publication. Scarce thus. 541 pages, 4to with tan cloth cover. Top edge tint. DJ split at front hinge, but held together by mylar cover and remains visually seamless. Chipping and creasing to dj, with mild rubbing to back cover. 0.25" loss across spine head. 1" loss to fore corner. Small closed tears throughout, though visually imperceptible.