The Cardinal's Scar: The Story of a Matador

New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. Very Good-. 1938. First Edition. Hardcover. (no dust jacket) [a good sound copy with only modest shelfwear, although the yellow-cloth binding has picked up enough light soiling over its lifetime to give the book a somewhat grubby external appearance; faint bookseller's rubber-stamp (Bertrand Smith's Acres of Books, Long Beach, Calif.) on front pastedown]. Novel, set largely in the early years of 20th century Spain, about an acclaimed young matador who kills a man in a fight over a woman, subsequently escapes from prison and wanders the country as a fugitive before finding refuge with a nun. One contemporary reviewer stated that "one feels the surge and push of the tale; there are no leisurely moments, from the first paragraph of the actual telling of the story one is swept forward with it." .