Between the Covers

Hardcover. First edition. Octavo. 310pp. Spine tanned, topstain with a bit of light discoloration, and bottom corner of the cover with some offsetting and loss of sheen to the cloth from dampstaining, near very good in a good only dust jacket with internal staining, a sunned spine, and several chips and tears.

An interesting copy from the library of Jersey City historian J. Owen Grundy, with his owner label and memorial bookplate. Tipped-in to the pastedown is a Typed Letter Signed from the New-York Historical Society regarding the 9th Regiment in the Civil War, and onto preliminary and terminal leaves are laid down two pieces related to the Grand Opera House ("Jim Fisk Once Bought it for Josie"; one is a newspaper clipping that has heavily offset onto the facing page), and with a half-page of neat inked notes in the rear. Tipped-on to the rear pastedown is the mailing envelope for a 1959 TLS from the author, written to Grundy near the end of his tenure as reporter and associate editor for *The Villager* in Greenwich Village. In the letter, Swanberg thanks Grundy for a nice letter, gives a bit of biographical background, and compliments the part of Washington Square in which Grundy was either living or working: "Your Washington Sq is one of Manhattan's beauty spots, with an antique elegance to be found nowhere else. What a pity that so-called progress is making inroads in it!" An imperfect but very interesting associating copy, with additional New York City material.

Item #605385