[Rarebooks] Dos Passos's advance copy of THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY?

[Serendipity Books]

McCoy (Horace) 1897-1955.  THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY?  New York: 
Simon & Schuster, 1935.  Original printed dark purple wrappers, 
lettered in white on the front cover, lettered in dark purple on the 
rear cover and flaps.  (vi) (187) pp.  Front and rear 
flyleaves.   Stains left, after expert removal of old Scotch tape 
along the edge of the front flap, edge of fly leaf and corresponding 
portion of the inside of the front cover. Perfect-bound in the 
un-priced dust jacket of the forthcoming first edition.  Two modest 
chips along the top edge of the front cover; small chip at the top of 
the spine. Rear cover lightly soiled. Light rubbing. Pencil price of 
$1.25 on the blank beneath the front cover.

             Advance copy of the first edition of McCoy's first 
novel, John Dos Passos's copy with his ownership signature in blue 
ink on the flyleaf: "Dos Passos".   Rare in advance format; we know 
of one other copy.  The association here of two authors profoundly 
expressive of American Depression life is intriguing.

             Dos Passos was in Key West until July, 1935, when he 
moved north to stay with MacLeish at Conway, on the way to 
Provincetown, where he remained at least through September.  In 
October he removed to New York, where he continued to work on THE BIG 
MONEY, the first portion of which had been serialized as early as the 
fall of 1933, in the first issue of Esquire; the last section not 
appearing until August 1936 in The American Mercury.  That fall, 
1935, he wrote very few letters, an indication of intentional isolation.

             Meanwhile, McCoy was at the other end of the continent, 
having survived WWI as a bombardier and reconnaissance photographer 
behind enemy lines; sports journalism and theatre management in 
Dallas, short story writing (he created a flying Texas Ranger for 
Dallasine, a periodical he edited), a brief life as a Hollywood actor 
(THE HOLLYWOOD HANDICAP, 1932), and an equally brief career as a 
Santa Monica pier bouncer at a marathon dance contest, a job that 
inspired this his first novel. Chaplin had bought the film rights 
originally, and the novel was much appreciated in France. 
"<http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/sartre.htm>Sartre and de Beauvoir 
praised it as the breakthrough existentialist novel to come out of 
America."  The depression novel was finally filmed in 1969 directed 
by Sydney Pollack.

             In all, McCoy himself has 47 screen credits, not 
counting KING KONG on which he worked also, as a script assistant, 
but including his last, Bad for Each Other, co-written with 
<http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/iwallace.htm>Irving Wallace, 1954, a 
point of some interest here, as this copy of THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T 
THEY comes directly from Irving Wallace's heirs.  We theorize John 
Rodrigo Dos Passos (born 1896) received the book (when he was 41 
years old and an established author) in consideration of a review, 
which he did not write; it then left his hands to enter the used book 
trade, where Wallace (born in 1916) found it in late 1935, when he 
was an impressionable 19 and an aspiring writer, or any time 
thereafter, for $1.25.  Wallace's first book, THE SINS OF PHILIP 
FLEMING, was not published until 1959.

         The choice of Dos Passos as a potential reviewer is obvious 
in retrospect. His first book review was of INSURGENT MEXICO by Jack 
[ie John] Reed in 1914, and between then and 1935 he published 
reviews of full-length works by Couperus; Whitelock; THE CATHOLIC 
ANTHOLOGY; Reed's THE WAR IN EASTERN EUROPE; Cummings' THE ENORMOUS 
ROOM; Wilson's THE SHOCK OF RECOGNITION; Baroja's THE QUEST; Frank's 
VIRGIN SPAIN; G. Lowes Dickinson; THE SUN ALSO RISES; Cuthbert 
Wright; Werfel; THE LIFE AND DEATH OF SACCO AND VANZETTI; Hibben; 
Michael Gold's 120 MILLION; A FAREWELL TO ARMS; THE SHADOW BEFORE by 
Rollins; THE LAND OF PLENTY by Cantwell; MERCHANTS OF DEATH; and IRON 
BLOOD AND PROFITS by Seldes.  Seemingly, when Dos Passos was deep 
into the composition and simultaneous serialization of his own longer 
works, or otherwise preoccupied, he did no reviewing, as was the case 
in  1917-1921; 1924; 1925; 1928; 1930; 1931; 1932; 1933 and 1935.

$5750.00


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