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THE STRAY LAMB.
New York: Editions for the Armed Services, Inc., [1944]. Small octavo (oblong), pictorial wrappers. Armed Services Edition and first paperback edition. ASE K-15. The Armed Services Editions was a significant historical project between U.S. government and major U.S. publishing to mass produce portable entertainment for the men at war. The books, introduced in 1943, were produced in ever increasing numbers as WW II progressed, eventually reaching over 150,000 copies per title. Managing production was Philip Van Doren Stern the former executive editor of Pocket Books. Manning, When Books Went to War.
RAIN IN THE DOORWAY ...
Garden City: Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc., 1933. Octavo, pp. [1-12] [1] 2-304 [305-308] [note: first and last leaves are blanks], illustrations by Herbert Roese, original pictorial salmon cloth, front and spine panels stamped in gold, top edge stained light orange, fore and bottom edges rough trimmed. First edition. "RAIN IN THE DOORWAY is Smith's other masterwork. Snatched into an adjacent dimension where all women are willing, work is a joke, and booze flows like water, Mr. Hector Owen finds himself partner in a firm reminiscent of the establishment run by the Marx Brothers in The Big Store (1941). Accidentally forced to return to our own sorrowful, rain-drenched world, Mr. Owen manages to retain the company of his new girlfriend, who promises to brighten even this vale of tears." - Paul Di Filippo in Pringle, ed., St. James Guide to Fantasy Writers, pp. 532-33. Barron (ed), Fantasy and Horror 5-277. Barron (ed), Fantasy Literature 3-325. Bleiler (1978), p. 182. Reginald 13389.
SKIN AND BONES.
Garden City: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1933. Octavo, pp. [1-2] [i-vi] vii-viii [ix-x] [1] 2-306 [307-308: blank] [note: first and last leaves are blanks], illustrations by Herbert Roese, original pictorial black cloth, front and spine panels stamped in gold, top edge stained red, other edges rough trimmed. First edition. An X-ray accident causes protagonist to appear unpredictably as a skeleton. Barron (ed), Fantasy Literature 3-326. Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction 1500. Bleiler (1978), p. 182. Reginald 13390.
TOPPER: AN IMPROBABLE ADVENTURE.
New York: Robert M. McBride & Company, 1926. Octavo, pp. [1-12] 1-292, jacket illustration by C.V. Farrow, original brick red cloth, front and spine stamped in gold. First edition. The first Cosmo Topper adventure. Mired in his middle class life Cosmo Topper purchases a used car, in which George and Marion Kerby were driving when they died in an accident. In visiting the spot of the crash the ghosts of the Kerby's appear and "torment" Topper in a farcical manner (from an online entry by David Langford on Thorne Smith). Basis for the 1937 film starring Cary Grant and Constance Bennett as the Kerby's and Roland Young as Topper.