Pal Joey

New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce. First edition. First Edition [stated]. Presumed first printing. Hardcover. Good. No dust jacket. Bookplate of Samuel Henry Austin. Cover has some wear and soiling. Some endpaper and page discoloration.. 195, [5] p. From Wikipedia: John Henry O'Hara (January 31, 1905 April 11, 1970) was an American writer. He earned a reputation first for short stories and became a best-selling novelist by the age of thirty with Appointment in Samarra and BUtterfield 8. He was particularly known for an uncannily accurate ear for dialogue. O'Hara was a keen observer of social status and class differences, and wrote frequently about the socially ambitious. A controversial figure, O'Hara had a reputation for personal irascibility and for cataloging social ephemera, both of which frequently overshadowed his gifts as a storyteller. Writer Fran Lebowitz called him "the real F. Scott Fitzgerald." John Updike, one of his consistent supporters, grouped him with Chekhov in a C-SPAN interview. By contrast, Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times dismissed him as a "minor writer" and a "well-known lout.....Pal Joey (1940) was immediately adapted as a musical of the same name, with libretto by O'Hara and songs by Rodgers and Hart. The 1940 production starred Gene Kelly and Vivienne Segal. The musical was successfully revived in 1952 and later, most recently for a 2008 2009 run on Broadway. It was also re-adapted as the 1957 motion picture Pal Joey starring Frank Sinatra and Rita Hayworth." From Wikipedia: "Pal Joey is a musical with a book by John O'Hara and music and lyrics by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. The musical is based on a character and situations O'Hara created in a series of short stories published in The New Yorker, which he later published in novel form. The title character, Joey Evans, is a manipulative small-time nightclub performer whose ambitions lead him into an affair with the wealthy, middle-aged and married Vera Simpson. It includes two songs that have become standards: "I Could Write a Book" and "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered". The original 1940 Broadway production was directed by George Abbott and starred Vivienne Segal and Gene Kelly. Though it received mixed reviews, the show ran for 10 months, the third-longest run of any Rodgers and Hart musical. There have been several revivals since, including a 2008 09 Broadway run, and a 1957 film adaptation starring Frank Sinatra, Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak."