Turn, Magic Wheel

Dawn Powell

Published by Constable, London, 1936

About this Item

Dawn Powell (1896 - 1965) was an American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and short story writer. Known for her acid-tongued prose, "her relative obscurity was likely due to a general distaste for her harsh satiric tone." Nonetheless, Stella Adler and author Clifford Odets appeared in one of her plays. Her work was praised by Robert Benchley in The New Yorker and in 1939 she was signed as a Scribner author where Maxwell Perkins, famous for his work with many of her contemporaries, including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe, became her editor. A 1963 nominee for the National Book Award, she received an American Academy of Arts and Letters Marjorie Peabody Waite Award for lifetime achievement in literature the following year. A friend to many literary and arts figures of her day, including author John Dos Passos, critic Edmund Wilson, and poet E.E. Cummings, Powell's work received renewed interest after Gore Vidal praised it in a 1987 editorial for The New York Review of Books. Since then, the Library of America has published two collections of her novels. Powell's first editions, especially her early books, are relatively scarce. Dust Jackets are particularly scarce. This copy is near fine in red cloth with black titles on the spine. Slight bumping at the spine ends, and slight age darkening of the endpapers and page edges. No other marks or damage. The clipped DJ has minor edge wear with several small chips and tears, and slight soiling. There is a small spot of adhesive residue on the lower jacket spine, apparently where a price tag was removed. Very good overall. . TN.

Seller Inventory # B359

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Turn, Magic Wheel
• Publisher: Constable, London
• Publication Date: 1936
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First UK.
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good Condition
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Literature
  • Fiction