Dr JOHNSON and COMPANY. [BIOGRAPHY (BLUE).PENGUIN No. 503.]

UK,slim 12mo p/back,1st edn.[Originally,US,(NY),Garden City, Doubleday,Doran,1928 8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.This issue the first UK,p/back,1st edn,complete and unabridged.] VG.No owner inscrptn and no price removal (1/-) from card cover,though previous seller's inked 10p price to front cover.Bright,crisp,clean,navy blue+white bands with black letters and b/w Penguin logo to front cover,similar colouring+letters+logo to a flat spine/ backstrip and NO reading creases to same,rear cover with thumbnail,b/w author portrait photograph and potted biography.Insides of both covers with publisher's advert for other available books.Negligible shelf-wear,bumping, creasing to edges and corners - no nicks, tears or splits present. Front cover with an accidental/production fault(?) raised wrinkle(?) /crease(?) leaving a faint impression of same to first 6pp,up to the contents list/table,the lower corner with a very small dog-ear corner crease too.Top+ fore-edges inevitably aged/toned - as usual/normal - but without other blemish,no foxing/spotting; contents clean, tight and solid.To pp8-16 an accidental,but uniform top corner crease with pp16 also having an intentional but very small top corner crease too.UK,slim 12mo p/back,1st edn,8-128pp [paginated] includes VI (6) chapters; plus [unpaginated] half-title with blank reverse,title page with dedication to its reverse and contents list/table with blank reverse.
Described hard but fairly and honestly,nowhere as bad as it seems,appears or indeed,reads - still a collectable item.
A very uncommon example - particularly of this 1st edn title,and its presentation,in a book of its age,and also given it's period of production,i.e. 1940-1947 - with wartime paper-rationing,and the poor quality of cheap paper stock generally used and survival rates of air-raids on domestic and commercial properties i.e publishers+printers.Most p/backs produced would have been of substandard quality and prone to subsequent disintegration and usually discarded or not survive at all.With war-time paper rationing and conservation of that and other materials, pulping was actively encouraged,so publishers with restricted and limited quantities for publishing,opted towards highly acidic and therefore cheaper paper, allowing for more books to be produced.Books made with this cheaper material tend to degrade faster,exhibiting several faults,blemishes,foxing/spotting etc.,and subsequently are uncommon and harder to find in a particularly fine condition.
Robert Lynd was born in Belfast,20th April,1879,the son of a Presbyterian minister.Educated at the Royal Academical Institution and Queen's College,Belfast.
At the age of 29 he became assistant literary editor of the Daily News (now the News Chronicle - then 1946) succeeding to the literary editorship a year or two later.he contributed to the firt number of the New Statesman for which he has written regularly ever since,chiefly essays over the signature "Y. Y." On Wilfred Whitten's death he became John O'London on John O'London's Weekly.He has published many volumes of essays including 'Life's Little Oddities.',three volumes of literary criticism (among them 'The Art of Letters.') and two books mainly political, 'Ireland a Nation.' and 'The Passion of Labour.'
He was awarded the Silver Medal of the Royal Society of Literature in 1928,and the Gold Medal of the Sunday Times for 'Belles Lettres.' in 1932.His wife is the pot and novelist Sylvia Lynd.
See my book ID rja699317 ENGLISH CHILDREN. [Britain in Pictures No. 30.] as UK,slim 8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn, NFINE/VG+.
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