Other Gods [*SIGNED*]

Hollywood: The Oxford Press. Very Good+ in Very Good dj. (c.1939). First Edition. Hardcover. [modest shelfwear, light-age toning and minor dust-soiling to edges of text block, one-time owner's signature and date at top of front endpaper; the jacket is a bit worn, with shallow chipping along the top edge, a few other small nicks here and there, and a vertical crease near the right edge of the front panel]. SIGNED by the author (no inscription) on the front endpaper. Set in the Southwest (on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border), this "sparkling story with its animated characters," featuring "encounters with the famous outlaw, Pancho Villa, [and] glimpses of colorful Mexican life" also has a "powerful message [that] will provoke a series of reflections whose application will help to make of ours a better nation, [which] is especially poignant at this time when strife and talk of war are rampant." The plot, generally speaking, has to do with a disillusioned Easterner who comes to Texas in order to pursue Western-type adventure, engages in some reckless cross-border hijinks, and ends up falling in love with a Mexican senorita; one contemporary reviewer commented on the book's "powerful Christian message." Per his jacket bio and contemporary publicity, the author himself had "travelled many an adventurous trail" in his younger life, and the incidents involving Pancho Villa were derived from his personal experience. I am dubious of this claim, however, as OCLC records his birthdate as 1901, which would have made him pretty darn young to be "riding with Villa"; in any event, this appears to have been the only one of his adventurous trails (imaginary or not) that he ever used as the basis for a book, as OCLC records no other titles under his name. (The male figure depicted in the jacket illustration, it seems to me, bears a bit of a resemblance to Hopalong Cassidy.) Signed by Author .