The Poison Tree
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1959. Ronald Clyne (dust jacket). First Edition. Hardcover with Dust Jacket. 8vo. Pp. 217. Polished black cloth, titles stamped in red and yellow on the spine, orange topstain: fore-edge irregularly trimmed in production, binding tight and leaves crisp. In the color Ronald Clyne dust jacket with price $3.50 intact on the front flap, author portrait on back: spine sunned; light edge-wear. Former owner name in pencil on the front free endpaper ("D. J. Lobrano") is that of Dorothy Lobrano Guth, longtime New Yorker staffer and editor of The Letters of E. B. White. Very Good+ / Very Good. Item #6391
Collected short stories from a 1950s Princeton grad and Rhodes Scholar, many drawn from childhood in Texas. Published at age 29, he never returned to fiction for fear of revealing his homosexuality. The dust jacket is a fine Wien Werkstatte-like construct, a strong combination of simple geometry and bold color. Clyne is best known for his Folkways Records covers. Dust jacket preserved in a clear, removable archival sleeve.
Price: $25.00