THE MAD BUSMAN AND OTHER STORIES

New York: George H. Doran Company, 1926. Octavo, original decorated red cloth, front and spine panels stamped in black. First edition. A collection of eight stories, four reprinted from SIDE SHOWS (London: Cassell, 1923) and four added here for the first time. The new stories are: "Second Vision," "Pas de Quatre," "Little Fraulein and the Big World" and "The Perfect Marriage." Popular, somewhat sentimental fiction. The title story and "Little Fraulein" have borderline fantasy content, showing the way a middle-aged man and a young girl, respectively, imagine inanimate objects as living. Wylie lived a colorful life, born in Australia, growing up in England (without a mother or much supervision, teaching herself from her father's library), traveling freely in Europe -- as a child! -- studying in Belgium and Germany, and finally moving to America after World War I. She began writing -- and publishing -- stories when she was a teenager, and became a militant suffragette in the 1910s. A bright, clean, near fine copy. (#117784) (Inventory #: 117784)