"The Walls are Cold" [story in] Decade of Short Stories, Fourth Quarter, 1943

Chicago: Decade, 1943.

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Softcover. Volume V, Number 5. Octavo. 30pp. Printed wrappers. Name inked on cover. A bit of erasure on the title page, spine lightly worn, a near fine copy of a fairly fragile volume.

Truman Capote's first published story. The 19-year-old author's bio states: "Little is known of his background except that he is employed on the staff of *The New Yorker*." Capote's story is the final one in the slim volume (pp.27-30); alas, he wasn't even able to make cover billing. The other contributors are Kathleen Hough, Frank Brookhouser, Frank Cook, Robert Walter, and C. Hall Thompson. (Brookhouser would go on to become a journalist of some note, and C. Hall Thompson is possibly the same author who published four stories in *Weird Tales* between 1946 and 1948.)

Young Capote must have liked this *The Walls are Cold* because, according to Gerald Clarke's biography, this is likely the story he personally submitted to *Mademoiselle* two years later, in the spring of 1945. When the receptionist asked if the manuscript contained his contact information, Capote reportedly replied, "I'll wait while they read it." Clarke describes the story (which was not published in *Mademoiselle*) as "a short, bitter story about a spoiled rich girl who gets her comeuppance from an ignorant sailor."

According to *OCLC*, *Decade of Short Stories* was published from 1939 to 1953, but issues in general seem to be very uncommon. *OCLC* locates 34 copies of the serial run but no individual issues and, as of 2/3/21 we could locate no copies of this issue in *OCLC* or the trade. The rare first published story of an author whose importance needs no explanation.


Item #456589

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Item #456589 "The Walls are Cold" [story in] Decade of Short Stories, Fourth Quarter, 1943. Truman CAPOTE.
"The Walls are Cold" [story in] Decade of Short Stories, Fourth Quarter, 1943