Wheels in His Head: Father and His Inventions

Whittlesey House / McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York. 1945. Hardcover. Stated 2nd Printing. Book is tight, square, and unmarked. Book Condition: Very Good; light suntoning to the spine; shelfwear to head, tail, and tips. No DJ. Blue cloth boards and spine with bright red lettering on the spine; mule and harness picture in red on the front board. Clean internals. Inner hinges are sound and not split. 203 pp 8vo. This book is a humorous, nostalgic 1945 memoir that chronicles the eccentric life and chaotic professional exploits of the author's inventor father, Alva John (A.J.) Musselman, a man possessed by an unstoppable urge to create. The narrative explores what it was like to grow up with a literal mad scientist in the family who viewed the entire world as a problem waiting to be engineered, leading to a household constantly turned upside down by his trial-and-error experiments. The book strikes a perfect balance between his massive commercial triumphs and his highly impractical, comical failures. The book is celebrated as a witty, warm-hearted slice of Americana, capturing the wild frontier of early 20th-century American innovation. A clean very presentable copy. …