(price-clipped) [solid clean copy, mild shelfwear, publisher's sticker on ffep indicating this to be a "specially autographed edition"; jacket moderately edgeworn, a few small tears, faint dampstain along left edge of front flap, nothing too serious]. SIGNED by the author on the half-title page. "This dynamic, contemporary novel is set against the natural background of Northern Michigan's wild hinterland. It tells of Marty Jevons' search for a purpose in life and a woman to love. [With a rifle?] Marty is a young Marine veteran. The savage streak that most of us camouflage so carefu... View More...
(price-clipped) [moderately worn book, some dust-soiling to top of text block; jacket is edgeworn, minor paper loss at spine ends and most corners]. "This book deals with the West of the silver boom," per the author's note in the front of the book, which represented Cain's first serious effort in the realm of historical fiction. View More...
(no dust jacket) [worn but intact copy, slight fading to spine cloth, bumping to all corners, fraying to cloth and some exposure of boards at bottom edge, several small gouges in rear cover, small bookseller's rubber stamp inside, one-time owner's name at top of title page]. INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author on the title page: "To Marie Vasgard / with good luck wishes / Robert E. Callahan / 1947." As nearly as I can make out the plot of this somewhat overwrought novel, it has to do with a man who places hundreds of "lonely hearts" advertisements in newspapers around the coun... View More...
(price-clipped) [nice clean copy, slight wear to cloth at spine ends; jacket has a few tiny nicks and chips along the top edge, but presents very well in new jacket protector]. Novel about six U.S. Navy men (members of the Pacific Fleet Combat Camera Unit), stationed in Tokyo during the Korean War, who become partners in a geisha house -- "as wild, delightful, charming, bittersweet, and satisfying a yarn as ever was told about the United States Navy." Hollywood went a little geisha-happy in the late 1950s and early 1960s (cf. THE TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON, THE BARBARIAN AND THE GEI... View More...
[very slight bumping/cracking to bottom corners, otherwise a very nice copy with only minimal shelfwear; jacket edgeworn, especially along spine joints, miscellaneous creasing, a few small tears, minor paper loss at spine corners]. INSCRIBED to the noted film star Richard Arlen and his wife ("Dick and Joby Arlen") and SIGNED by the author on the ffep, additionally DATED in his hand Mar. 24, 1931. The author's only book (at least that we know about), a novel derived from his own experiences as a coal miner in England. As explained in the jacket bio, and further confirmed by the inscr... View More...
[modest shelfwear, very faint dampstain on top edge of text block, one-time owner's neat signature and date of purchase on ffep; shallow chipping at spine ends, a couple of other little edge-nicks]. The author's first (and apparently only) novel, set in Flushing, N.Y., about a young couple struggling to make it through the Depression after the husband loses his job as a magazine editor. The New York Times reviewer called it "a really appealing first novel [that] is light, modest in scale, not startlingly original, but [having] a quality of warmth and truth and naturalness that is rather rare... View More...
(no dust jacket) [a bit of soiling to covers, spine slightly turned, small black mark on top edge of text block, front hinge cracked but not split, light foxing to ffep]. INSCRIBED and SIGNED by the author on the ffep: "To His Grace, Eddie, / Duke of Collinsville / with the compliments / of the author / Lucian Cary / December 23, 1930." Comic novel about a young prizefighter who decides to return to college, partly to please his wealthy parents and partly to win the heart of a co-ed for whom he's fallen hard. Originally published serially in The Saturday Evening Post (August 4 - Sept... View More...
[soiling and uneven fading to cloth, soiling to page edges, ffep removed with consequent weakening of front hinge; jacket is edgeworn with various small tears, but downgraded to "Poor" due to large piece (about 1/6 of total area) missing from bottom right-hand corner of front panel (taking most of the author's name with it)]. "A love story 'tis true, but unlike any other -- not the love of man for woman, of parent for child, or friend for friend; none of these, but a passionate all-consuming love of daughter for mother, as inversion of material instinct as it were." Takes plac... View More...
(no dust jacket) [nice clean tight copy, mild corner wear, faint soiling to top edge, slight age-toning of pages; jacket text pasted to ffep]. Novel about an Englishman who lived in the Indian jungle with a tribe of monkeys. View More...
(no dust jacket) [solid copy, top corners lightly bumped, slight darkening to spine cloth]. Adventure novel about an American who gets involved in leading a safari in South Africa. One of this popular author's harder-to-find books. View More...
(no dust jacket) [decent copy, minor foxing around edges of endpapers, hinges a little tender but not cracked or split, paper spine label a bit rubbed but still completely readable, a few pages near end of book slightly scrunched at top corners]. Short stories by a British writer, in a somewhat hard-boiled vein, as the title suggests. As the New York Times critic observed, "in tone they are much more American than British. They have a vigor and directness, even an occasional brutality, which one rarely finds among the author's countrymen." The author subsequently turned out two nov... View More...
(no dust jacket) [light external soiling and moderate shelfwear, small vintage bookseller's rubber stamp (Bertrand Smith's Book Store, Long Beach, California) at bottom corner of front pastedown]. English novel, about something or other -- artists, some kind of school, people having affairs with one another, the staff of an art magazine. (Do you have any idea how hard it is to synopsize a novel when you can't find any reviews, and the dust jacket is missing? I'd read the darn thing if I had time, but alas.) The author was a longtime educator, who taught in Japan, China, India and England; ... View More...
[light wear to book, slight fading to cloth along top and bottom edges, small vintage bookseller's rubber-stamp (Bertrand Smith's Acres of Books, Long Beach, California) at bottom corner of front pastedown; jacket has tiny tears at several corners, some edgewear and minor wrinkling along bottom edge, a handful of tiny nicks and closed tears]. Novel about a newspaper's book editor who starts looking into the background of Arnold Kelleher, one of his city's upstanding (and recently-deceased) citizens, regarded as a hero for his role in recovering a kidnapped child, and discovers a great dispari... View More...
[quite a decent copy, moderately shelfworn and with some smudging and marking to the cloth (mostly on the back cover), but nice enough that's it a bit of a shock to discover (from the rear endpaper) that it was once a lending library book (see notes); jacket is lightly soiled, some wear at edges and corners, neat internal tape-reinforcement at top of spine, all in all very well-preserved and quite attractive]. First novel by this New York-born writer, who went on to a long and successful career as a Hollywood screenwriter. Derived from his personal experience as a "sandhog" working on... View More...
[light shelfwear, very slight deterioration to binding at top of spine; jacket is heavily edgeworn, soiled, shallow chipping along top edge, large chip at bottom of rear panel (no loss of text)]. The second book that the author managed to squeeze out of his experience on an East River tunnel gang. (The first, "East River," was published in 1935.) This book is often cited erroneously, by the chronologically-challenged, as the source for the 1935 Raoul Walsh film UNDER PRESSURE, which was actually based on "East River," which at one time (prior to its publication) was actually ... View More...
(no dust jacket) [ex-library book with typical markings (stamp and label on ffep, date due slip & pocket in back of book) but minimal wear (date due slip shows just one checkout); some light spotting to spine cloth and (less) on covers; no external library markings]. Uncommon novel, a romance (not gay-themed) about a young woman who goes on the road after her grandmother's death; at various points she visits a Western ranch, and gets involved with a traveling theatrical troupe. (I am uncertain about whether the author is the playwright Mary Chase ("Harvey," etc.), but I don't think so.... View More...
[nice bright clean book, just a trace of wear to extremities; jacket shows a little wear and minor paper loss at spine corners, a few other tiny closed tears, 2.5" split at bottom of front foldover (very unobtrusive)]. If there's such a genre as He-Man Fiction, this would be a prime exemplar. It's the story of "Nicky Wayne, army test pilot, trans-Atlantic flyer, owner of a private landing field and of airplanes which he rents out, with or without himself as pilot." And what kind of a man's man would he be without a few dames on the string to make his life "complicated and exci... View More...
(no dust jacket) [moderately-worn but still attractive book, slight bumping and very minor fraying at most corners, diagonal creasing and one small edge-tear in frontispiece plate, light soiling and age-toning to page edges, gilt lettering on spine and front cover still bright, binding intact]. (B&W plates) Second "Wallingford" book, a follow-up to the author's 1908 novel "Get-Rich-Quick-Wallingford." There would eventually be a total of five Wallingford books, and a handful of silent movies, although the stock market crash of 1929 might have been the effective death-knell for this characte... View More...
[good solid copy, mild shelfwear, top edge a little dust-darkened, thin pen mark on bottom edge, a little soiling/sunning to cloth along top of rear cover; jacket has minor paper loss at top and bottom of rear hinge, ragged tear at top of rear panel, 1- inch split along top front hinge, front panel intact and quite attractive]. Short stories by a young Greek author (her first book), whom Miss Sackville-West in her Foreword predicts "will go very far -- a true discovery." [Edition disclaimer -- this book is "printed in Great Britain,"and has a plain rear panel, with no printed p... View More...
[good solid copy, slight deterioration to cloth at bottom edges of covers; jacket lightly soiled, with a few tiny edge-nicks]. "Anne Warren, an orphan, heiress to millions, pampered and guarded by scheming relatives, has never known the usual joys of youth. On her twenty-first birthday she disappears, renouncing luxury, ease, and attention, to seek something greater . . . love. She finds love, after many adventures, many hardships, many trials, and many joys, and love leads her back into the path of duty." View More...