Guys and Dolls.

RUNYON, Damon.

Publication Date: 1931

About this Item

New York: Frederick A. Stokes. 1931. 8vo. Original limp cover with pictorial dust jacket pasted on at spine; "Pub'n Date Aug 20 1931" stamped on preliminary blank; Housed within red quarter morocco publishers folding box with five raised panels to spine; title plus "First Edition" lettered in gilt to spine; pp. [8], ix-xxii, [2], 3-313, [3]; dust jacket slightly soiled and spine chipped at head and foot; minor indents to text block and extremities demonstrating some minor loss; a little creasing to reverse endpapers and dust jacket; otherwise very good copy of a scarce edition. Advance Proof Copy of Damon Runyon's classic. We have been unable to locate any other example of this binding variant. There are other examples of advance copies in a traditional cloth binding with the dust wrapper while the first softback edition has a completely different design, making this an extremely scarce publishing anomaly.Guys and Dolls is a collection of thirteen short stories written by the legendary Damon Runyon, who, as the front flap asserts, "knows more of Broadway, and of sporting life, and of the underworld, than any other writing man alive". The theatrical adaptation of Guys and Dolls is considered one of the most successful Broadway musicals ever in production. The play first premiered in 1950 where it won the Tony Award and was subsequently transformed into a film starring Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando.The musical is based on two particular stories, The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown and one that appears in this collection, Blood Pressure. Damon Runyan is notorious for his depiction of the Broadway Universe that flourished following the Prohibition era. He was known for creating distinctive characters from Brooklyn or midtown Manhattan that avoided conventional "plain names", instead adhering to more humorous, abstract monikers, such as "The Seldom Seen Kid" or "Good Time Charley", as well as employing nouns without explanatory context, such as "the old equaliser", (his nickname for a gun). In this way, Runyon wrote in a similar method and style to the Cockney Slang but in a way that was, and is, ever unique to the New York stratosphere.

Seller Inventory # 2120745

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Guys and Dolls.
• Publication Date: 1931
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included