THE SEVEN LADY GODIVAS
First printing of Seuss's first "adult" book.
Very good plus in good only jacket.
Price: $800.00
THE SEVEN LADY GODIVAS
"...crawling with nudes but has not a single prurient scene or moment" – contemporary review by Alexander Laing
Dr. Seuss offers a comedic retelling of the Middle Ages folk tale, meant to be bawdy and risqué, but settling into a cheery silliness that is an inevitable part of Seuss's natural voice. Despite the naked women on nearly every page, it is the puns that stand out rather than any potential eroticism. Seuss biographer Philip Nel summarizes the book as "a commercial failure when published in 1939 and a curiosity when republished in 1987." Not quite an adult book for children, or a children's book for adults, GODIVAS gives us Seuss from a different angle than we expect.
Read more: Younger, Younger, & Hirsch, First Editions of Dr. Seuss Books: A Guide to Identification, 71; Nel, Dr. Seuss: American Icon, 102.
The Object
New York: Random House, (1939). 10'' x 7''. Original orange cloth, dark red-stamped central vignette and lettered spine. In original price-clipped orange and grey pictorial dust jacket. Orange and black pictorial endpapers. Illustrated with color illustrations throughout. [80] pages. Book with minor bumping to spine ends, some offsetting to gutters of endpapers. Jacket lacking a large portion of rear panel (about 1/4), with a few other chips and moderate edgewear.
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