The Breed of Basil

New York: Robert M. McBride & Company. Very Good+ in Very Good dj. 1930. First Edition. Hardcover. NOISBN . [nice clean book, appears unread, a bit of wear to spine ends and bottom corners, bottom rear corner bumped; jacket has some minor chipping at spine ends, one-inch closed tear and associated creasing at top of rear panel, irregular light dust-soiling to rear panel]. "The hero of this romance is a man on horseback, vigorous young Brian, Duke of Malvern in Illyria. Illyria is the kingdom of earth, empire of the illusions essential to human happiness; the arena, therefore, of youth's battle for his dreams." The author's very uncommon first novel, a piece of pseudo-historical-fictional frivolity that doesn't suggest that in another ten years or so he'll write an important proletarian novel, "Out of the Furnace," set in the steel mills of the Pittsburgh area, where he had worked himself as a young man. .