The Thankful Spicers
New York: Scribners, 1912. First edition. Hardcover. First edition in book form (previously serialized in "The Youth's Companion" in 1918). Hardcover in pale yellow cloth lettered and decorated in black and light blue. 177 pp. illustrated with 4 plates from drawings by F.R. Gruger. A fine, bright, tight example. No jacket. Fiction. A homespun tale about the lives and experiences of the Spicers, a rural American family during the early 20th century. As the story begins, the Spicers, who've had a sewing machine that would not run, a washer that leaked and an onyx clock (that was only right twice a day) gather around the kitchen table as Mr. Spicer carries in something wrapped in a sack. daughter Fanny and son Jed remove the sack to reveal a typewriter!. Jed: "It looks like it was made in '76!"; other daughter Evalina: "What are we going to do with it?"; Mr. Spicer: "You write stories and poems on it and sell 'em to magazines...there is money in it---easy money!". He also tells the family uneasily that he's paid $1.50 for it (remember, it's 1912). Fanny cleans it up, oils it and plans to go to Business College. More homey adventures ensue, like shopping for hosiery for Christmas stockings, Jed's budding attraction to young neighbor Nettie, who has secured a job "in the city" working at a department store; Thanksgiving dinner; Mrs. Spicer buying a silk gown; fanny losing her job as a secretary (again reader, it's 1912) at an investment company; Mr. Spicer falls seriously ill with pneumonia but miraculously recovers when Fanny returns home and the family gathers round (still 1912). Fine. Item #E36832
Price: $23.50