Rediscovering Ben Hecht, Volume II: Art & Architecture on 1001 Afternoons in Chicago [*limited/numbered edition*]

Washington DC: Snickersee Press. Near Fine. 2002. Limited/Numbered Edition. Hardcover. (plastic-comb binding with wraparound illustrated boards; no dust jacket, as issued) [nice copy, as-new except for a tiny circle of indentations on the front cover]. (B&W photographs, facsimiles) A collection of long out-of-print pieces by Hecht, assembled within a kind of artist's-book format, with numerous illustrations, many of which are glued in by hand (they are referred to by the publisher as "color appliques," and were replaced in later editions with printed versions); a few are printed on clear mylar. Artists and illustrators whose work is reproduced include Herman Rosse, Frank Charles Peyraud, Wallace Smith, George Grosz, and Jerome Blum; there is also some biographical information about Rosse and Grosz. Per the limitation page, this is one of "75 copies of which this is Number 3. Numbers 1-24 comprise a uniform edition, after which there will be a color change on the inner cover." Two NOTES: (1) the leaf containing pages 63/64 is bound in upside down; (2) the publication information refers to a "hand-painted frontispiece by Sheila Crider," but in the acknowledgements it's referred to as "our exuberant cover of Sheila Crider's paint on hand made paper"; it is quite clearly the latter (not a pictorial "frontispiece" as that term is generally understood); at any rate, it's very nice -- but it's the inner cover (not the outer cover), and is positioned beneath a clear mylar page on which the title of the volume is printed. .