The Magnolia Jungle [Signed] The Life, Times and Education of a Southern Editor by East, P. D - 1960

New York: Simon & Schuster. Very Good- in Good+ dust jacket. 1960. 1st Edition. Hardcover.
Two toned cloth, black on the bottom half, tan the top. Corners bent, slight edge wear and rubbing, a little foxing. Jacket in new Brodart, sunned, minor edge wear with a few small closed tears. A nice copy. ;
Inscribed by author on front free end paper. ; 7¾" - 9¾" Tall; 243 pages;

"P. D. East has been the editor, since 1953, of The Petal Paper, published across the river from Hattiesburg, which is in the south-central part of Mississippi. One of his editorial rules: love your enemies because it makes them so damned mad. Another: serve God by laughing at the devil. The result: a drop in his home-town popularity to practically zero and a steady increase in his fame and his fans across the nation.
"Here in his first book is the candid story of how he got that way. It starts with the growing up of a miserably poor boy in the cut-over pine woods of central Mississippi, fighting and worrying over his schools, money, Negroes and white boys, God, and himself. It tells next about the army and his first real jobs, trying to come to terms with what he calls the magnolia jungle of the South. Then it describes, with honesty and conviction, how the 1954 Supreme Court decision against segregation in the schools forced him into a long running fight for decency and humanity. " ; Signed by Author .