Spoofs

New York: Robert M. McBride & Company. Very Good+ in Very Good dj. 1933. First Edition. Hardcover. (price-clipped) [a good sound copy, light shelfwear, a bit of foxing to the fore-edge, 1933 Christmas gift inscription ("to John from Daisy") on the half-title page; the jacket has short tears at several corners with little bits of paper loss, and is lightly soiled]. (cartoon illustrations, facsimile documents) A collection of "nearly fifty digs and skits in prose and verse covering many of our foibles in times soft as well as hard," featuring contributions from almost three dozen noted wits and wags of the day -- the names (and reputations) of most of whom have faded and vanished with time. (There are a few exceptions, notably George Bernard Shaw, Jimmy Durante, Christopher Morley, Don Marquis, and J.P. McEvoy, and good for you if you've heard of all these.) It will help, of course, to be steeped in the culture (particularly the literary culture) of the era -- it's hard to appreciate a spoof, satire or take-off if you're ignorant of its target -- but there's still plenty of amusement to be had. (Included is a Sherlock Holmes take-off, "The Adventure of the Murdered Art Editor," by Frederic Dorr Steele -- notable especially since Steele was the foremost American illustrator of the Holmes stories, which he began illustrating for both book and magazine publication in 1903.) The book's endpapers bear reproductions of all the contributors' signatures. .