New York: David McKay, 1959

8vo, pp. 245. Original red boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Illustrated dustwrapper. Small owner’s label to front pastedown, but a fine copy in a near fine dustwrapper with just the lightest of wear to spine ends.

First edition, SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR TO FRONT FREE ENDPAPER.

If Lonnie Coleman is remembered at all it’s for his later Beulah Land trilogy, but this novel is remarkable for its entirely non-judgmental treatment of its central character’s homosexuality. Samuel Kendrick is a successful, openly gay New York publisher....to whom nothing bad happens. He falls in love, he has relationship problems, and he falls in love again, the whole played out in the gay baths and bars of mid-twentieth century Manhattan, where Mad Men’s gay characters could have been found after work. A fascinating historical document as well as a snappily written, refreshingly upbeat and unjustly forgotten novel.

Scarce in any condition, this copy is a beautiful example, and signed.