Oh, Doctor!

London: John Lane The Bodley Head, 1923. Hardcover. Very Good/Good. London, John Lane The Bodley Head, 1923 (second impression)/ 1923. Octavo; blind-stamped red cloth; edges uncut; an excellent copy with the very good dustwrapper a little rubbed, creased, chipped and torn with slight loss (chiefly to the top corner of the rear panel). American novelist and dramatist Harry Leon Wilson (1867-1939) was part of the Bohemian colony at Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, which included Jack London, Mary Hunter Austin, George Sterling, Upton Sinclair, Xavier Martinez, Ambrose Bierce, Alice MacGowan, Sinclair Lewis, Francis McComas, and Arnold Genthe. This book was written either during, or after, 'the most embarrassing event in Wilsons life in March 1922, when he fought and lost a highly publicized 'duel of fists' with landscape painter Theodore Morrow Criley. Carmel-by-the-Sea was collectively humiliated when the sordid details of their long-standing feud made headlines in the San Francisco press and given prominent coverage across the USA on the International News Wire, including the Los Angeles Times and New York Times. It was revealed that their argument had its origins with 'a light romantic' love scene between Criley and Wilsons wife in the 1921 production of 'Pomander Walk' at Carmels Forest Theatre. The resentful Wilson sent Criley a series of accusatory letters, including a twenty-four page invective (!!), and demanded satisfaction in this 'affair of honor'. After three months of physical training and instruction in boxing in Honolulu, Wilson returned and the two men met on 'a high cliff overlooking the sea' where Criley thrashed the writer in ten minutes' (Wikipedia).