Good morning Antiquers! I have always collected books, but just in this past year and a bit I got a little more serious into buying true vintage editions. This is one I bought from a vintage book collector shop..... This is a 1953 UK first edition of Frederic Morton/Asphalt And Desire. I can’t remember what I purchased it for, but it is in nice condition with the cover in a protective non acidic plastic sheath.
If you are getting into collectible books, and not familiar with it already, you might be interested in abebooks.com. It is a website where dealers list books, and is very helpful when comparing editions, condition, and price. Here is a link to their search page: https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchEntry?cm_sp=TopNav-_-Results-_-Advs
@2manybooks Yes, and thank you very much for the link to Abe Books. I am aware of the site, that’s where I found out there is a 1952 U.S. edition of this book. I have also made comparison of my particular U.K. edition to others out there, and mine holds up pretty good in the big scheme of collecting. I very humbly have only dipped a mere toe in the vintage book collecting waters, in comparison to “many experienced book collectors on this forum”. I am for sure always willing to learn more, and very much respect opinions/advice by others offered on here. Thank You-Maven❤️
@antidiem Sorta interesting that Johannesburg, South Africa bookshop label on the inside cover. This book has travelled over the years, to places who may know.
From Kirkus Review (and not surprising as book was written by a middle-aged man): "This details the events of the five days following a Bronx Jewish girl's graduation from Hunter College of the City of New York, where she has been the editor of the college paper, a junior Phi Bete, and a ""miserable virgin"". Her frantic efforts to land a magazine job and to ""grow up"" are set against the even more frantic background of her first generation family. The home scenes with her driven, driving mother, her crushed father, and her violently emotional and lonely brother, as they struggle with themselves and with each other in family love and hate, are very real and by far the best things in the book. In her attempts to find herself outside her home she becomes involved with several men, fails to get a job, takes part in the tragi-comic fiasco which occurs when she tries to do an expose of cheap hotels, and feels pangs of thwarted ambition, etc. All of this is told in the girl's own self-consciously worldly, bitter, and (she thinks) biting language. She is however only a surface sophisticate, and much of her story does not ring true... Perhaps the family scenes, and the sex, and the publisher promotion will overcome the average reader resistance to the long Wolfe-ian passages of introspection and the rather hypoed plot." Think book's value remains in its cover art. Debora
Thank You @Debora I was just about to post this just as yours came up. Thank you very much. (Lol It was the same overview as yours) ❤️Maven
@antidiem I have not read it. Been meaning to give it a try, but it has sat dormant on my bookshelf. What initially attracted me to the book was the cover art, from what I have read in reviews (not that it really matters to me, and critics are just angry fallen ambition people who can’t make it in the real world, maybe I’m slightly harsh, but I’ve had friends who are writers & artists that have done shows etc that I feel were misjudged by mainstream media on an artistic scale, but I have drifted slightly off topic lol) it seems the books plot is not very highly touted. But I will get around to giving the book a serious try, and see for myself.
@Vintage Maven , let us know what you think of the book, if you do read it. I've collected lots of books through the years just for their illustrations or covers. Most I had not read. Then a few years ago I finally decided to read them. It took a while. Some were quite good. Others were almost unreadable, to the point that they were not worth the time.
@Figtree3 Thank You, I will most certainly post a lil something here on the book once I do sit down and actually read it. ❤️Maven
