The Great Bear

New York: Boni & Liveright. Near Fine. 1927. 2nd printing. Hardcover. NOISBN . (no dust jacket) [minor shelfwear to bottom edge, green topstain somewhat uneven, spine lettering a bit dulled but still easily readable]. Novel set in 1880s Chicago, about a wheat speculator and his domination of the Chicago Board of Trade, aka "The Pit" (also the subject of Frank Norris's classic 1903 novel of that title). The protagonist's brother, a powerful department store owner, had been the subject of the author's first novel, "Sweepings," published in 1926 and adapted twice for the movies during the 1930s, with Cohen himself doing a bit of screenwriting during that decade. Of "The Great Bear," the New York Times critic wrote that "as a dramatization -- or better still, a 'humanization' -- of American business, its force and content cannot be denied," despite its having been overwritten: "There are too many exclamation points [and] too much verbal hairiness to make it first-rate." (I'll leave you to discover for yourself what "verbal hairiness" looks like on the printed page.) .