2 Vintage Hardback Books

2 VINTAGE HARDCOVER NOVELS - "FLIGHT FROM NATCHEZ" BY FRANK G. SLAUGHTER AND "THE GREAT SNOW" BY HENRY MORTON ROBINSON, NO DUST JACKETS Two midcentury American hardcover novels, both without dust jackets. Book one: "Flight From Natchez" by Frank G. Slaughter, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York - tan cloth-look boards, green spine lettering reading "FRANK G. SLAUGHTER / Flight From Natchez / DOUBLEDAY," deckled fore edge, and green printed pictorial map endpapers showing the lower Mississippi, Natchez, the Trace, West Florida, Georgia, and the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Cherokee, and Seminole lands. Book two: "The Great Snow" by Henry Morton Robinson, Simon and Schuster, Rockefeller Center, New York - orange cloth boards, dark blue spine lettering in a decorative rule box, with the copyright page reading "COPYRIGHT, 1947, BY HENRY MORTON ROBINSON ... FIFTH PRINTING." Flaws to know about: an ink ownership signature reading "Joanne Jenkins" in red on the map endpaper of the Slaughter book; the Robinson book has frayed and bumped spine-end corners with small cloth losses, rubbed edges, page-edge toning and foxing, and dark specks on the boards; the Slaughter boards are soiled and edge-worn with a crease. No dust jackets on either book. UNTESTED and uncollated - the books were not collated page by page and no printing statement was observed in the Slaughter volume. Sold as a lot of two books. Description Form: two clothbound octavo hardcover novels, no jackets, both text-only interiors apart from the printed map endpapers in the Slaughter book. Construction: Slaughter - tan boards with green stamped spine lettering, deckled fore edge, top-stained edges, green-printed double-page map endpapers. Robinson - orange textured cloth boards, blue stamped spine lettering with a ruled box and corner ornaments, plain endpapers, chapter openers set in ruled boxes. Marks and imprints: the Slaughter title page reads "BY FRANK G. SLAUGHTER / Flight From Natchez / DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY, INC. / GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK" with the Doubleday anchor device. The Robinson copyright page reads verbatim "ALL RIGHTS RESERVED INCLUDING THE RIGHT OF REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART IN ANY FORM / COPYRIGHT, 1947, BY HENRY MORTON ROBINSON / PUBLISHED BY SIMON AND SCHUSTER, INC. / ROCKEFELLER CENTER, 1230 SIXTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 20, N. Y. / FIFTH PRINTING," with "MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA / AMERICAN BOOK-STRATFORD PRESS, INC., NEW YORK" at the foot, and it is dedicated "FOR Ellen, Hannele and Tony." The Robinson book retains its "ABOUT THE AUTHOR" leaf describing Robinson as a poet, Columbia instructor, author of Stout Cortez, Science vs. Crime, and Fantastic Interim, and coauthor with Joseph Campbell of A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake. Size: each approximately 8.5 inches tall by 5.75 inches wide, ordinary novel format. NO TAPE-MEASURE PHOTOGRAPH WAS TAKEN FOR THIS LOT, so these dimensions are visual estimates from the photographs only and should be verified in hand. Photographed on a dark oak table. Only the two books pictured are included, and no jackets, slipcases, or inserts are included. Attribution note Frank G. Slaughter, 1908 to 2001, was a Jacksonville surgeon turned bestselling novelist who published upwards of 56 books that sold more than 60 million copies, most of them historical or medical fiction built around a surgeon hero, per Wikipedia and his New York Times obituary. Wikipedia and multiple bibliographies date "Flight From Natchez" to 1955, published by Doubleday. Library summaries describe it as set in 1781, with Dr. John Powers leading a band of Loyalists out of Natchez up the Natchez Trace through the wilderness of the lower Mississippi Valley, per the Cal Maritime Library nautical fiction index. Important note on edition: Black's Bookshop catalogs a 1955 Doubleday copy with tan cloth boards, green spine letters, a paste-down map of the southern United States in green ink, deckled edges, and 284 pages as a book club edition, and a scholarly bibliography likewise records a 1955 Doubleday book club edition. Our copy matches that physical description closely, and no printing or first-edition statement was located in the photographs, so a book club edition CANNOT BE RULED OUT and this is not represented as a first printing. Henry Morton Robinson, best known for co-writing "A Skeleton Key to Finnegans Wake" with Joseph Campbell in 1944 and for the 1950 novel "The Cardinal," published "The Great Snow" in 1947, per Wikipedia. The book was reviewed in The New York Times in April 1947, and publisher copy describes it as originating in a week-long blizzard that paralyzed northern New York. This copy states FIFTH PRINTING on the copyright page, so it is NOT a first printing. Notes for bidders Store and handle these as ordinary reading copies, not as fine books. Keep them dry and out of direct sunlight - the orange cloth on the Robinson volume will fade quickly on a sunny shelf, and the toning