The Cricket in Times Square

Sixth printing. Near fine in bright pictorial dust jacket: very clean and attractive. This copy is nicely inscribed "For Ed Printz-To warm his house! Jerry (George Selden)." Ed Printz was an actor in New York who appeared on Broadway in 1959 as the Court Stenographer in THE LEGEND OF LIZZIE and as the understudy to Sidney Armus for the Dan Aaron role in THE COLD WIND AND THE WARM by S. N. Behrman. It is only speculation, but based on Selden Thompson's psuedonymous novel THE STORY OF HAROLD, the inscription takes on added meaning. THE CRICKET IN TIMES SQUARE, originally published in 1960 won a Newbery Honor Award in 1961, and is now considered one of the great post-war American classics for children. George Selden [Thompson] was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and attended the Loomis School in Windsor, Connecticut. He received his B.A. from Yale, where he was a member of the Elizabethan Club and contributed to the literary magazine. He spent three summer sessions at Columbia University and, after college, studied for a year in Rome on a Fulbright Scholarship. "His first two books were titles he was soon glad were out of print. As he wrote, "I recount these failures not, Lord knows, to boast, but because, if any unpublished or discouraged children's author reads this, I would like to say, as Noel Coward himself once said to me at a monster literary party where I was the least-known writer, "Press On". People often asked George Selden how he got the idea for THE CRICKET IN TIMES SQUARE. "One night I was coming home on the subway, and I did hear a cricket chirp in the Times Square subway station. The story formed in my mind within minutes. An author is very thankful for minutes like those, although they happen all too infrequently." The storytelling of George Selden blends the marvelous with the commonplace realities of life. It was essential to him that his animal characters display true emotions and feelings with which readers can identify. The adventures of Chester Cricket and his friends are enhanced by the vibrant pen-and-ink drawings of Garth Williams, illustrator as well of both of E.B. White's classics CHARLOTTE'S WEB and STUART LITTLE. George Selden wrote more than fifteen books, as well as two plays. Mr. Selden lived in New York City until his death in December, 1989. He enjoyed music, archaeology, and J.R.R. Tolkien. His editor, Stephen Roxburgh, said, "Chester Cricket, Harry Cat, Tucker Mouse, and their friends celebrate the triumph of innocence and camaraderie over cynicism and selfishness. George Selden is gone, but his voice lives on in Chester Cricket's song." A lovely copy with a warm and personal inscription and very scarce and desirable thus.…