The Destroyer

Los Angeles: The Pacific Library Association. Near Fine. 1931. Reprint (see note). Hardcover. (attractive green/blue/purple patterned cloth with gilt lettering; no dust jacket) [nice clean book with no significant wear, tiny stain on bottom edge of text block, slight fading to spine cloth; embossed ownership stamp of MGM writer/producer Carey Wilson on both endpapers]. Novel about a guy with a relentlessly rebellious nature, who essentially wrecks the lives of all around him, and whose various escapades include falling in love with his hated brother's wife (who is apparently no ray of sunshine herself). The reviewer for The Charlotte (NC) News really went to town on it, calling it "a mighty unpleasant book. Unpleasant because there is no use in being optimistic and saying to oneself that it isn't true. It reeks. It positively squirms with white maggots that eat away all that is fair and beautiful. All goodness and clean beauty is a fair dream contrived by a sardonic deity to cheat us when we read Ernest Poole. But then there are those whose minds are made that way, too. And for them [the] book will be a delight, a feast of beauty. For indeed his picture of frustration is painted with sharp modern words and good staccato phrase." The title page states: "This edition published exclusively for the Pacific Library Association by the Macmillan Company." (Kinda makes you wonder if they'd seen that particular review before that arrangement was made.) . (Inventory #: 29923)