Haunts And By-Paths And Other Poems

New York: Frederick A Stokes, 1919. Full Description:

SMITH, Thorne. Haunts And By-Paths And Other Poems. New York: Frederick A Stokes, 1919.

First Edition od author's second book. Octavo (7 1/2 x 5 1/8 inches; 190 x 130 mm). [10], 139, [1, blank] pp.

Publisher's full blue cloth. Front board with publisher's imprint stamped in gilt as a central device. Spine lettered in gilt. Fore-edge and bottom edge uncut. A few small pencil notes in the text. In original printed dust jacket. Jacket is toned and rubbed. With chipping along extremities and splitting along folds. Sill an about fine copy in a very good jacket.

(truncated) "Born in Annapolis, Maryland, James Thorne Smith had a brief but prolific career as a best-selling comic novelist. He began his working years as an advertising copy-writer, but soon turned to fiction writing. He joined the U.S. Navy in 1917 and worked as an editor and writer for The Broadside, a newspaper for enlisted men. His stories about an inept serviceman, Biltmore Oswald, became wildly popular among the magazine's readers. After the war, he moved to Greenwich Village, where he became friends with writers such as Sinclair Lewis and had a brief affair with Dorothy Parker. He continued to work in advertising while trying to succeed as a poet. After marrying in 1919, he and his wife frequently visited the experimental community of Free Acres in nearby New Jersey. In 1926, he achieved sudden literary stardom when his comic supernatural novel Topper was published to great success." (Harry Ransom Center).

HBS 69395.

$1,350. (Inventory #: 69395)