The Mediocrat

Garden City NY: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc.. Near Fine in Very Good dj. 1928. Later Printing. Hardcover. (in A.L. Burt reissue dust jacket) [minimal shelfwear, top corners a bit bumped; jacket edgeworn, a bit of paper loss at spine ends, a few small edge-tears]. Proto-feminist novel that grapples with the burning question: "Is there a new kind of woman coming to disturb our homes -- a woman who lives by making war on her kind? Has the freedom won by the 'old-fashioned suffragist' been taken over by a new 'emancipated' type who ignore women's duties while demanding women's privileges? Hilda Reynolds was forced to believe so. She had created for her husband, her three boys, and her flapper daughter, a household where there was a spirit of sportsmanship and loyalty. Perhaps she did 'wear hats that would have caused a civil war,' but she was a good mother and a good citizen. Then Vesta took the house next door, and Hilda's quiet, happy life was rudely shattered." The author (1888-1952) had been a newspaper reporter at age nineteen and also wrote magazine fiction; she published her first novel in 1917 and subsequently wrote one or two books every year until 1934. (NOTE that the book itself bears the Doubleday, Doran identification inside and out, but is encased in an A.L. Burt reissue dustjacket.) .