Christmas Story. Illustrations by Bill Crawford.
first edition
1946 · New York
by Mencken, H. L.
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1946. First Edition, Stated. Small octavo, measuring 6 inches x 7 inches; blue cloth (hardcover); full-color illus. paper label; gilt letters; full-color illus. endpapers; [32] pp. Near-Fine, with darkened spine; in a Very Good, mylar protected dust jacket with edgewear. From dust jacket: H. L. Mencken, with an author’s tenderness for his offspring, describes this little book as “a Christmas story to surpass, transcend and put an end to all other Christmas stories. He says that it is full of “psychology, sociology, tehology (both moral and dogmatic), ethics, aesthetics, economics, penology, psychiatry and sex appeal.” “It is aimed,” he goes on, “at infidels, and yet it should delight and ravish the pious. It is as immoral as a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, and yet it packs one of the damnedest morals ever recorded in the literature of the Western World.” All this is crowded into 32 pages, with room for the gaudy pictures by Bill Crawford. It is the author’s shortest book. His last ran to 790 pages. (Inventory #: ess4603`)