A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Subtitle: A Novel
By: A Novel by Betty Smith
Edition: 2nd Harper ed - 1st (?)
Publisher: Harper & Brothers Publishers
Published: 1943
Place of publication: New York, USA
Language: enm
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 443
ISBN-13: 9780965025546
Copyright date: 1943
Description: A huge bestseller which went through innumerable printings. Basis for the first film directed by Elia Kazan, which featured Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, and Oscar winners Peggy Ann Garner and James Dunn (who touchingly brought his considerable experience as a real alcoholic to the screen).--Biblio

Francie Nolan, avid reader, penny-candy connoisseur, and adroit observer of human nature, has much to ponder in colorful, turn-of-the-century Brooklyn. She grows up with a sweet, tragic father, a severely realistic mother, and an aunt who gives her love too freely--to men, and to a brother who will always be the favored child. Francie learns early the meaning of hunger and the value of a penny. She is her father's child--romantic and hungry for beauty. But she is her mother's child, too--deeply practical and in constant need of truth. Like the Tree of Heaven that grows out of cement or through cellar gratings, resourceful Francie struggles against all odds to survive and thrive.

Betty Smith's poignant, honest novel created a big stir when it was first published... --Emilie Coulter at Amazon.com. "Maggie Now": This book begins its story before Maggie Now's birth. It introduces her contrary father, Patrick, as a young man in Ireland and her gentle mother, Mary, as a school teacher in New York at the turn of the century. They meet in New York after Patrick flees Ireland and comes to America to work for Mary's father. Maggie Now grows up attending Catholic school, rearing her younger brother and yearning for love and a family of her own.-- Aurora
Notes: ***Manufactured in the U.S.A.*** / First ed. 145 [i.e. 290] leaves; Bound galley proof; SpecCol. c.1 has bookplate: "Ex libris Mary E. Hemenway;" Related names: Herman Finkelstein Collection (Library of Congress); OCLC 639466728 / ***Although this 1st ed is from a pre-ISBN period, it appears (see 1st ed Biblio) to have been given an ISBN, one noted in several web addresses, including goodreads.***