JOHN BARLEYCORN.
Illustrated by H.T. Dunn. New York: The Century Co., 1913. Original very dark green cloth. First Edition, first issue (with only one blank leaf at the rear other than the endpaper). This was London's "confessional book," a fictional but quite autobiographical tale that Jack wrote to exorcise his shame...
JOHN BARLEYCORN was sensational as the history of a man who drank too much, yet who claimed to hold his liquor. Its author only hinted at the psychological and physical fears that made him a heavy drinker, and while the book overstated the deprivation of his youth, it understated the internal disturbances and agony in his kidneys which drove him to the stupor of the bottle. "The only trouble, I may say, about JOHN BARLEYCORN," he wrote in 1913, "is that... I did not dare put in the whole truth." The truths he omitted were... the connection between his drinking and early whoring on the waterfront, his horror that Charmian's loss of her child might have resulted from a taint in his blood due to the mixed poison of alcohol and residual disease [Sinclair].
This copy is in very good-plus condition (gilt less than bright as usual, a touch of rubbing at the tips); there is a November 1913 inscription on the front free endpaper. Sisson & Martens p. 72; Blanck 11946. Item #15931
Price: $185.00