Positano
Salerno: Ente Provinciale per Il Turismo, 1954. Item #1300 8vo. 225 x 140 mm., [8 ¾ x 5 ½ inches]. 30pp. Stiff printed yellow pictorial wrappers. Four-color stylized image of Positano on front cover. Printed in two colors throughout. Fine.
First Edition Thus, First Printing. Not in Goldstone and Payne, which describes an edition in Italian dated 1955 (A34a) and what appears to be a later printing of this present edition dated 1959 (A34b). Not in the Harry Valentine Steinbeck Collection Catalogue.
In May 1953, a travel piece by Steinbeck on the Italian coastal village of Positano appeared in Harper’s Bazaar. A southern Italian tourism agency issued the present first separate edition of it in 1954. In 1955, using the same wrapper design and format, they issued an Italian language edition (Goldstone & Payne A34a), and in 1959, they reprinted that edition in English—occasionally, though erroneously, referred to as the first edition in English (Goldstone & Payne A34b). From the inventory of Burton Weiss, Bookseller.
Price: $350.00