Galloping Down

New York/London: The Century Co.. Fine in Very Good+ dj. (c.1931). First Edition. Hardcover. [very nice condition, tight and clean with no discernible wear, vintage price sticker (from The White House, San Francisco) on rear pastedown; jacket shows a little wear along top and bottom edges, a few tiny edge-tears along bottom edge, one-inch closed tear at top rear hinge]. Novel set in Ireland, about the revolt of a young man against the heritage represented by his father, a "stiff-necked old baron" who's the last of the Kilgannon line. "For six hundred years the Kilgannons of Ireland had leagued with the Devil and drunk to his glory. Three things they had loved, and all too well -- the heart of a horse, the body of a woman, and the neck of a bottle." In this "dashing, mad-paced, gallantly written story," "drunken father and fighting son wage a stirring battle of character." (Pour me a pint -- I feel a John Ford movie coming on.) The author, a bit surprisingly, was an American -- born in Oregon, educated in California and at Yale, he was quoted in a 1959 L.A. Times article as saying that "horses have been a part of my life as long as I can remember." (At the time he was working in the publicity department at Hollywood Park and hosting a morning radio show about horse racing.) . (Inventory #: 19570)