The Woollcott Reader: Bypaths in the Realms of Gold / Woollcott's Second Reader

New York: The Viking Press, 1935. Hardcover. Two volumes. Both 8vo. Terra cotta blind-lettered cloth with gilt spine lettering, dust jacket; blue cloth with gilt spine lettering. xi, 1010pp; x, 1056pp. First volume: Very good/very good. Endpapers a tad age toned per usual; quite mild jacket edgewear only; internally tight and near fine. Second volume: Very good. Spine lightly sunned, else internally tight and fine. Handsome THIRD printing of Woollcott's thick first anthology ("Bypaths in the Realms of Gold") and FIRST edition of his thick second anthology. First volume features contributions from the likes of Thornton Wilder, J.M. Barrie, Anthony Hope, Saki, Evelyn Waugh and others and is signed large and bold by Woollcott in brown ink on front flyleaf. Laid in is a contemporary newspaper clipping showing Oliver Hardy-lookalike Woollcott standing alongside enormous stacks of this same title and flipping through a copy, with caption noting the book "has a record first-edition total of 65,000 volumes...." Second anthology (lacking dust jacket) features contributions from the likes of Edith Wharton, Max Beerbohm, D.H. Lawrence, Willa Cather, Ernest Hemingway, Kenneth Grahame, Somerset Maugham, Dorothy Parker and Stephen Crane. Tipped in facing title page is a Typed Note Signed from Woollcott's secretary, Robert Kearney: 1p, 5½" X 7 3/4", New York, NY, 19 November 1936. Near fine. Addressed to noted Lincoln/Civil War scholar Arnold F. Gates (1914-93). On Woollcott's unusual imprinted letterhead, his assistant tells this admirer: "Mr. Woollcott asks me to tell you that there are no copies of the political speech available." Boldly signed. Interesting pair of this enormous 2,000-plus page anthology, first volume signed by Woollcott and second volume with note from his assistant.