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VENABLE (Clarke)
Aw Hell.
4th Imp., 329pp. VG in dw. NY: A.L. Burt Co.
1927
#68106
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![[HLMainPic]](booksThumbs/68106.jpg "Click on the left or right of the image for more images")
American war novel which claims great merit for itself & was apparently well reviewed. I am indebted to ReadInk, a Los Angeles bookseller, for the following erudite & entertaining note (relating to a different edition with a different jacket) which I am lifting, with permission, from their website: "Self-declared as "THE Great War Novel," this might as well be subtitled "A Hillbilly's Adventures in the Great War." The author was a WWI veteran who hailed from Missouri (his military service bona fides are detailed on the rear jacket flap), and while his alter-ego protagonist, Jeptha Montgomery Brice (called "Jep") maintains his cornpone accent and attitude throughout, the author at least doesn't fall into the trap of letting Jep also narrate the story, which would likely have rendered it unreadable. (Let's just say that Clarke Venable was no Ring Lardner, and leave it at that.) The book was apparently well-reviewed in its day -- the entire jacket design, at least of this printing, consists of a couple of dozen single-word quotes from various newspapers ("Sparkling"; "Vivid"; "Genuine"; "Absorbing"; etc.) -- although I haven't been able to turn up any actual contemporary reviews from which I might have been able to pull a more full-bodied quote. The bulk of this author's literary output (both under his own name and using the pseudonym "Covington Clarke") seems to have been boys' adventure fiction, often with an aviation theme; this would appear to be the only time he incorporated anything resembling autobiographical content, although admittedly that's a bit of an assumption based on his acknowledged war service." Nice copy, orig. red cloth, gilt, VG in illustrated dw, also VG with minor wear at extremities. See illustrations on our website..
£45
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