Dream's End

New York: Robert M. McBride & Company, 1927. Full Description:

SMITH, Thorne. Dream's End. New York: Robert M. McBride & Company, 1927.

First edition. Octavo (7 1/2 x 5 1/4 inches; 190 x 135 mm). [1]-342 pp.

Publisher's original blue cloth. Front board and spine lettered in gilt. Fore-edge and bottom edge uncut. Some very minor rubbing to spine extremities. In publisher's pictorial dust jacket. Some rubbing and chipping to jacket spine extremities. A bit of creasing to jacket spine. Still overall a very good copy in a very good jacket.

"Born in Annapolis, Maryland, James Thorne Smith had a brief but (truncated) 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 69396.

$1,500. (Inventory #: 69396)