The Viking Portable Library.
With An Introduction By W. Somerset Maugham.
New York: The Viking Press, 1945 Stock Code: 141988
Ruthven Todd's copy, inscribed by Parker
First collected edition, fifth printing, inscribed on the front free endpaper "To Ruthven Todd - with gratitude to him for wanting this miserable signature. Dorothy Parker". Todd was a Scottish poet, artist, and novelist, best known as an editor of the works of William Blake. He moved to the United States in 1947 where he lived for 13 years.This edition contains some of Parker's smart and smarting poetry notably from Enough Rope (1926), which had made Parker's reputation almost overnight, with The Nation describing her verse as, "caked with a salty humor, rough with splinters of disillusion, and tarred with a bright black authenticity" (Meade), Sunset Gun (1928), and Death and Taxes (1931).
The selected short stories, include, among others, the "provocative and prophetic 'Arrangement in Black and White', based on the racist treatment of the actor, singer, and civil rights activist Paul Robeson at a party at the artist Neysa McMein's" (ANB).
Description
Small octavo. Original pink cloth, titles to spine in brown, author's monogram to front board in brown. With the dust jacket.
Condition
Corners gently bumped, the binding bright and firm, internally fresh and clean. A near-fine copy in the very good jacket, price-clipped, light wear and creasing to corners mostly.
Bibliography
Marion Meade, "Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This?", p. 177.
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