On the Sixth Day

Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. Near Fine in Near Fine dj. (c.1928). 1st [U.S.] Edition. Hardcover. [book is tight and clean, no discernible wear, light age-toning to page edges; jacket is almost flawless, with just a couple of tiny tears and associated horizontal creasing at top of front panel and front flap]. Novel set on the moors of Devon and in "sophisticated London," about the relationship between a father and daughter, the latter an unwanted child born to the moralistic father and his good-time-loving wife. Per the jacket blurb, the author "pits the modern tendency to self-absorption and indulgence against the Puritan ideal of self-denial, and works out the dramatic conflict in the life of Michael Poolecrue [the father]." Included among the cast of characters in London is "Lee Fabian, the author of the most talked-of novels in England, who professes that his main pleasure in life is to watch human beings torture themselves." I've been unable to find out anything about this author, whose name would suggest that he's Italian but whose three novels (of which this is the last) were all published in English (and England) between 1925 and 1928; the British Library cataloging of his books states that this is a pseudonym for a "Joseph White" (which indeed would be a direct translation from one name to the other). If you wish to investigate further and get back to me, be my guest. .