Bound for Glory (book)

Bound for Glory

First edition
Author	Woody Guthrie
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	Autobiography, Folk music
Publisher	E.P. Dutton
Publication date	1943

Bound for Glory is the partially fictionalized autobiography of folk singer and songwriter Woody Guthrie. The book describes Guthrie's childhood, his travels across the United States as a hobo on the railroad, and towards the end his beginning to get recognition as a singer. Some of the experiences of fruit picking and a hobo camp are similar to those described in The Grapes of Wrath.

Originally published in 1943, it was republished with a foreword written by Studs Terkel following the 1976 film adaptation. The book was completed with the patient editing assistance of Mazia and was first published by E.P. Dutton in 1943. It is vividly told in the artist's down-home dialect, with the flair and imagery of a true storyteller. Library Journal complained about the "too careful reproduction of illiterate speech." But Clifton Fadiman, reviewing the book in the New York Times, paid the author a fine tribute: "Someday people are going to wake up to the fact that Woody Guthrie and the ten thousand songs that leap and tumble off the strings of his music box are a national possession, like Yellowstone and Yosemite, and part of the best stuff this country has to show the world." A film adaptation of Bound for Glory was released in 1976.