The Crystal Cup

New York: Boni & Liveright. Near Fine in Very Good dj. 1925. First Edition. Hardcover. [minimal shelfwear to book, attractive patterning on edges of text block (not marbling, exactly; more like a floral pattern); the jacket is lightly edgeworn, with small tears and slight paper loss at the spine extremities]. "Mrs. Atherton hs dared make her heroine a frigid woman [that's why she's half-encased in what looks like an iceberg in the jacket illustration, I guess] -- a beautiful, talented girl with a distinct aversin for marriage -- her character a snarl of inhibitions and complexes, the unfortunate result of her early environments." Although Mrs. Atherton was a California writer who set most of her fiction in and around San Francisco, in this instance her heroine lives on an estate near Atlantic City, New Jersey, and the plot has her marrying a successful author even though "she shudders at his touch -- but admires him as a person and her new status gives her entree to the stimulating society of New York's smartest set -- the exclusive rich as well as the 'sophisticates' who dominated Mrs. Atherton's 'Black Oxen.'" That novel, which immediately preceded this one, had been one of the literary sensations of 1923, and was almost immediately adapted as a silent film. .