The End of The World: A Post-Mortem by Its Intangible Assets

New York/London: Harper & Brothers. Very Good+. 1931. 1st Edition (D-F). Hardcover. (no dust jacket) [good sound copy, lightly shelfworn, spine lettering a bit dulled, faint beverage ring on rear cover, large vintage bookplate on front endpaper (apparently pasted on top of the same individual's ownership signature; see Notes)]. (B&W photograph, facsimiles, cartoon) A collection of short pieces, by a number of its contributors and editorial staffers, lamenting the recent demise of The New York World, which began publication in 1860 and was purchased by Joseph Pulitzer in 1883. Under Pulitzer's ownership (until his death in 1911) the newspaper pursued an aggressive editorial policy, combining sensation, sports, sex and scandal into a stew that spawned the term "yellow journalism," and that essentially changed the face of American newspaper publishing, and made The World the largest-circulation daily in New York City. When it was put up for sale by Pulitzer's heirs in 1931, the owner of the Scripps-Howard chain (publisher of the Evening Telegram) seized the opportunity and bought The World for the sole purpose of shutting it down to eliminate the competition. The shutdown was accomplished so abruptly that, in the words of city editor Barrett, the staff "really never had a chance to cover its death adequately"; thus this volume was conceived, and was in print a mere three months after The World published its last edition on February 27, 1931. Among the more than two dozen contributors represented here are Frank Sullivan, F.P.A. (Franklin P. Adams), Walter Lippmann, Harry Hansen, Heywood Broun, and Dudley Nichols. NOTE that the bookplate is that of screenwriter William Rankin, who had a string of mostly undistinguished story credits in the 1930s and 1940s, and that it appears to have been pasted down on top of Rankin's signature]. .