Yearly Lease

New York: Triangle Books. Very Good+. 1948 (c.1932). Reprint. Hardcover. (laminated pictorial boards; no dust jacket) [solid copy with light external soiling, less wear than often seen on these cheap editions; tiny chip at top of spine, short crack (not separated) at base of spine, typical age-toning (not severe) to pages]. Reprint edition of one of several pulp novels written by Lewton early in his career (and published under his own name rather than his perferred pseudonym, "Carlos Keith"). This is about a woman who takes refuge from "twenty years of insecurity and reckless living" in the big city (New York) in a small apartment building in a small village -- oddly, a building that had been built by her father, as a gift for her mother, years before. The trials and tribulations of the building's many denizens -- the striving young writer and his pregnant wife, the woman whose competition for boyfriends was her own mother, the retired actress, etc. -- fuel the book's narrative. (Although I have never seen the original 1932 edition of this book ('tis muy scarce), I'm 99% sure that same Vincentini illustration on the cover of this reprint derives from the dust jacket of the earlier book -- in fact, the signature on this one reads "Vincentini 31." Vincentini also illustrated all three of Lewton's "Carlos Keith" novels, originally published (as was "Yearly Lease") by The Vanguard Press.) . (Inventory #: 30006)