Red Bud Women: Four Dramatic Episodes by Mark O'Dea; With a Foreword by Pierre Loving

xix, [1], 123 p.; 20 cm. Red cloth with gilt spine and cover titles. Top page edges red. Gift inscription by the author to Corolyn and George on the front free endpaper, dated "Lob-Lolly-by-the-Sea." Contents: Foreword by Pierre Loving -- The Song of Solomon -- Shivaree -- Miss Myrtle Says "Yes" -- Not in the Lessons. The four short plays feature the women of Red Bud, a fictional town in Iowa. Three of them were first performed at the Arts Club of Chicago and the Cameo Theatre of Chicago. Pierre Loving (1893-1950) was very active in the little theater scene in the 1910s and early 1920s. In the Foreward, Loving discusses the rural population of the United States and O'Dea's use of the small town to stand for "the stark empty lives of American farm women." In Very Good Condition: slightly cocked; edges rubbed; cover is lightly soiled; pages are clean and tight.