[some wear at heel of spine, bottom corners lightly bumped, otherwise a nice clean copy with a previous owner's bookplate on the front pastedown; jacket has some edge/corner wear,a bit rubbed, front flap vertically creased]. SIGNED by the author on the ffep with a generic inscription ("All good wishes"). More "Lighthearted Light Verse." Signed by Author View More...
[very slight dog-earing to bottom corner of rear cover]. Trade PB (pen and ink drawings) Humorously INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author on the title page. "If you're planning to travel to Mexico in the near future, this guide will become your best. Using the premise of a drinking game, [the book] provides a hilarious yet pragmatic set of exercises for learning to speak Spanish and having a good time south of the border. Lessons in pronunciation, verbs, prepositions and other traditional topics are followed by anecdotes written in dialogue, to illustrate usage. A laugh-out-loud, fun way ... View More...
[no siginficant wear to book, light spotting/foxing to edges of text block, one-time owner's name on ffep; jacket lightly rubbed, with faint soiling]. Letters home from a Royal Flying Corps staff officer stationed on the Western Front during World War I -- eccentric, whimsical, and sometimes just plain weird, written as "a civilising distraction from the mental and physical discomforts of the war, written to someone who may have missed a good deal of the subtleties, but who has done us all the favour of fostering the flow." (This someone, Lady Juliet Duff, is described in the book's ... View More...
(price-clipped) [minor shelfwear, top corners slightly bumped, light dust-soiling to top edge, a touch of fading to cloth at top of spine, small bookstore stamp at bottom corner of front pastedown; jacket shows general wear at edges, small tears at a couple of corners, soiling to rear panel, spine title quite faded]. The author got a lot of literary mileage out of her experiences as "the glamorous young wife of a busy Westchester physician," this being her fourth book about the having and raising of his kids. In this one, her pregnancy with #4 occasions much concern and attention from... View More...
[solid copy, light shelfwear to bottom edge, dust-soiling and rubbing to red topstain; jacket has numerous chips (especially at spine, including loss of most of book title), and is split at rear hinge, but front panel is substantially complete and still attractive]. (20 full-page line drawings) Humorous essays by "a philosopher by profession, a humorist by nature, a New Englander by residence, an Oxford man by education, and an Irishman by birth." (That's just one guy, not five.) The author's "topics range from the jazz orchestra of the future to the next war." View More...
[nice tight copy with no discernible wear; jacket very clean and attractive, with a short closed tear and associated creasing at top of spine]. (line drawings) "A wildly amusing first-person narrative (from tapes) by a phantom William Shakespeare, in which the Bard of Avon's ghost discusses many things -- particularly the charges that he didn't write the plays. He demolishes Marlowe, the Baconian Society, Ben Jonson, and others. He also proves, for some readers, that Queen Elizabeth was the real playwright." Blatty's third (and scarcest) book. View More...
[moderately shelfworn book, light bumping to bottom corners, spine slightly turned; jacket edgeworn, a little browned at spine, worn at spine ends, one tiny chip at bottom of front panel, small tears with very minor paper loss at front corners]. (line drawings) The true story, more or less, of the U.S.S. Margaret, the most notorious ("the worst," in the author's words) of the many private vessels that were pressed into service for submarine patrol by the U.S. Navy during World War I. A former pleasure yacht, the Maggie "was an old, old lady, never built to go out of sight of land... View More...
(no dust jacket) [some wear and fading to cloth at base of spine, top corners bumped, light general wear, faint bookseller's rubber-stamped name on front pastedown (Bertrand Smith Acres of Books, Long Beach, Calif.)]. (B&W photographs) The second (of two) Lady Addle books, gently satirical faux memoirs in which the fictional Lady Blanche Addle (née Coot), daughter of the 13th Earl of Coot, gushingly details the utterly mundane details of her utterly uninteresting life as a member of the British upper crust, with the humor (and the book really is quite funny) arising from Lady A's obliviousness... View More...
[very light shelfwear to book, spine just slightly turned; jacket shows some wear along top and bottom edges, minor paper loss at top of spine, tiny closed tear at bottom of front panel]. (pen and ink drawings) "This is not a joke book," states the author in his Preface. "I prefer to call it a personalized collection of anecdotes and experiences directly related to my work as an itinerant story-teller." The author had a syndicated newspaper column called "Live & Laugh," and from about the time this book was published until 1972 he served as the drama director of the ... View More...
(no dust jacket) [front hinge cracked, several corners bumped, slight fading to spine cloth, old bookseller's rubber stamp on front pastedown (Bertrand Smith, Acres of Books)]. (B&W cartoon illustrations) INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author on the second front endpaper: "Best wishes / Conrad [or possibly "Comrade"] E.W. Gilliland / "Buckshot" 4-14-32." [See note.] Putatively humorous account, in diary format, of a young recruit's experiences in World War I. The author strives for a vernacular sort of narrative voice, but fortunately doesn't go overboard with it; a lo... View More...
[light wear to edges of paper-covered boards, minor soiling to top page edges; jacket has one tiny chip at top of front panel, water-staining along spine and near bottom right corner of front panel, short closed tear at top of rear panel]. pen & ink drawings) "To see the Kaiser's Epitaph / would make a weeping willow laugh." Humorous doggerel by the writer/illustrator sometimes referred to as "the American Oscar Wilde," much of it thematically related to World War I ("The Air Raid"; "Marching to Berlin"; "The Touching Ballad of General von Beers"; etc.)... View More...
[all books have tight bindings and uncreased spines; a few exhibit some light wear to the extremities and/or minor surface blemishes, but each is in at least Very Good+ condition, with several approaching Fine]. Mass Market PB (cartoons) The nine books in this set, with publisher's numbers, printings, and dates (as nearly as can be determined), are: Baby Sitter's Guide by Dennis the Menace (Crest s493; 2nd ptg, 1964): Dennis the Menace, Teacher's Threat ([Fawcett Crest k874; 4th ptg?, 1959?); Dennis the Menace, Make-Believe Angel (Fawcett Crest k966; 1st ptg?, 1964); Dennis the Menace, Happy ... View More...
[nice clean copy, just minor wear to both book and jacket]. INSCRIBED and SIGNED by Wager on the ffep: "To ______, / who has always been so / kind to giant apes and / creators of all sizes / Best / Walter." The big ape tells his side of the story. "Piercing the sham, ripping off the veils, and lying a lot to get even, the planet's suavest and most sympathetic simian lets it all hang out." Issued simultaneously in paperback and hardcover. Signed by Author View More...
(price-clipped) [minor wear to bottom edge, light browning/spotting to bottom of text block, otherwise a clean and solid book; jacket a little edgeworn, with a couple of short splits at spine corners and a small piece torn away from bottom of rear flap]. (cartoon drawings) Anthology volume, with a new introduction by the author, collecting his first three books -- no doubt issued either to enhance or take advantage of his novel "Rhubarb," which appeared the same year, and of which the rear jacket flap presents a panoply of glowing review blurbs. All three Smith books had been big best... View More...
[very little wear, but browning to pages at edges due to cheap paper stock used; jacket a little rubbed, slightly faded at spine, a couple of itsy-bitsy tears at edges of rear panel]. (endpaper map by Leo Hershfield) INSCRIBED (briefly, in Spanish) to a friend and SIGNED by the author on the second ffep. The noted Gringo humorist takes the reader on a tour south of the border: "If you have ever been to Mexico or if you've never been there, if you ever wanted to visit Mexico or if you never heard of the place, this book will excite and delight you. From Tzintzuntzan to 'dirty-talkin'' Al... View More...
(price-clipped) [light shelfwear, mild bumping to top corners, one-time owner's signature and date at top of ffep; jacket a little worn along top and bottom edges, one tiny chip at bottom of front panel]. The author, "a father of twenty years experience" offers his "genial but rueful report on a job which he says is a 'combination of adventure, blindman's buff, guerrilla warfare and crossword puzzle.' ... He traces the ordeals and mystifications of a father from that first small cry in the maternity ward down through the myriad knotty problems of table manners, religion, swing mu... View More...
[nice-looking book, with just a touch of surface wear to the covers, slight bends to bottom corners of about a dozen pages near the end of the book]. Trade PB (cartoon drawings) INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author/cartoonist on the inside front cover: "To _____ / with my best wishes / Gahan Wilson"; accompanying the signature (and together with it covering the entire page) is a rough drawing of a lightning bolt, and at the bottom right is a small drawing of a woman with a thought balloon over her head, thinking "What a neat wallpaper that would make!" This book, "Wilson's first major collecti... View More...
[minor bumping and slight wear to bottom corners of book; jacket moderately soiled, with a bit of damage (small scraped area and puncture tear) to spine (obliterating most of THE in title), short closed tear at to of rear panel, faint shadow of removed price sticker on front panel]. Described in the jacket blurb as the author's "first picturebook for children," this freakishly-illustrated tale features the chronically noise-making titular family -- with parents who appear to have serious rage-management issues. (The term "nuclear family" might take on a little extra meaning when applied to th... View More...
[a nice sound copy, light shelfwear, gilt spine lettering just a bit rubbed; the jacket is lightly soiled, with tiny tears and minor paper losses at the spine corners, and a small piece torn away at the bottom right corner of the front panel]. (B&W drawings) An epistolary tale, in the vein of Ring Lardner's "You Know Me Al," as Ed. Harmon ("formly the sensation of baseball") quits the Big Leagues -- impulsively, to avoid being shipped out to the minors -- signs up to fight the Germans, and writes humorous semi-literate letters to his pal Joe back home, relating jocular accounts of his experien... View More...