New York: Knopf, 1946. Octavo, tan cloth lettered & decorated in gilt. pp (xxvi), 330, xx (Index), (2), [4]. Yellowing to page edges, else finde. Cream price-clipped dust jacket has small chips at head of spine and upper outer corners, VG otherwise. Vignette illustrations and design by W.A. Dwiggins. "Lives of great swriters from Hesiod to Tolstoy prove that literature, like life itself, is rooted in the soil of the good earth." Written by a well educated farmer and writer.