PBA Galleries

Early edition. Two volumes, 8.25"x5.5". pp: 89; 107. Simple title page in both volumes (no publisher's name, place or date). Short Preface at the front of volume 1, with two-page Chronology at the back. Both volumes are perfect-bound in pictorial white wrappers. "J.D. Salinger, March 1940" and a list of the stories are printed in red on both covers.

In our copy, the signature of Prudence [Macgowan] Faxon is on the front endpaper of each volume. Prudence is the daughter of Kenneth Macgowan (1888-1963), American author and film producer who ran the Provincetown Playhouse along with Eugene O'Neill in 1922, before moving to Hollywood as a story editor for RKO, &c., &c. Pictorial Stiff Wrappers. This work is a piracy, "believed to have been produced in California. Salinger's lawyers were successful in suppressing most of the edition," according to G. Bixby in American Book Collector, May/June 1981, and quoted here from the WorldCat entry. Our copy has the leaves in volume 1 bound backwards, so that even numbers appear on the recto pages, and odd numbers are on the versos. The leaves in volume 2 are bound as usual.

Donated by Bob & Alison Petrilla, Roosevelt, NJ.