Cannery Row (1945)

Outstanding Association Copy, Extensively Inscribed in 1993 by Steinbeck's Friend Alicia De Noon and Local Attendees of a Wedding in the Wing Chong Building, the Basis for Steinbeck's Lee Chong Grocery in the Novel: First Edition, First Printing, of Cannery Row, in the Original Dust Jacket

Steinbeck, John. Cannery Row. New York: Viking Press, 1945.

Octavo. Hardcover. 1st Edition.

First edition, first printing, of Steinbeck's beloved novel, in the original dust jacket. An association copy inscribed by attendees at a wedding held in Cannery Row's Wing Chong Building, as well as by the building's then-proprietor and Steinbeck's personal friend, local personality Alicia De Noon. “Steinbeck has compounded a bitter and uproariously funny commentary on the futility of human aspiration and the barrenness of existence... An extraordinary mixture of wild laughter and searing pain” (New York Herald Tribune). First edition, with "First Published... January 1945" and $2.00 dust jacket price. Second state, in canary yellow cloth. This association copy was inscribed at a couple's 1993 wedding (Carole and Charles) at the Wing Chong Building, the basis for the Lee Chong grocery in Cannery Row. The inscriptions quote Khalil Gibran, reference hippie culture, and even specifically name the Wing Chong Building. Notably, local antiques shop owner, the late Alicia De Noon, was one of the first inscriptions, signing as "Prop. Wing Chong Building, Cannery Row." De Noon lived above her shop in the building. According to a later article in the Los Angeles Daily News, "Alicia Harby De Noon is holding court in the back of what used to be Wing Chong's market on Cannery Row. Seated behind a small desk, smoke swirling from a cigarette held between manicured coral nails, her black cherry hair done up in a modified Gibson Girl style, she says, in a throaty voice: 'John Steinbeck, when he wrote about this store, called it "a miracle of supply, though not a model of neatness."' She looks around the cramped shop now named Alicia's Antiques (what she calls an 'elegant junk shop'), where old glass, jewelry, sheet music and a paper Chinese lantern mingle with knickknacks, kimonos and a near-life-size cardboard cutout of actress Shelley Winters. 'I have to work very hard to keep it that way,' says the former entertainer, with all the verve of a top comedian delivering a punch line." In fact, De Noon, who worked in the cannery early in her life, was a personal friend of both John Steinbeck and his close friend, Ed Ricketts. In an interview with the Chronicle South Bay Bureau, De Noon recalled, "Steinbeck used to take me fishing on his boat, and we had fish fries afterwards. He was a curmudgeon. He was cynical. He was sarcastic. But underneath all that there was just a neat human being." She was invited to the 1982 film adaptation of Cannery Row and walked out due to its lack of faithfulness to the novel. In the 1980s, De Noon and several of her friends opened a Steinbeck Remembrance Room, a small museum and gathering place commemorating Steinbeck and his life. Book fine, dust jacket completely unrestored with only light wear to extremities.