I SLEEP WITH STRANGERS. [Together with Correspondence.]

Los Angeles: Savage and Savage, [1951]. 64 pages. Original black cloth stamped in silver. [22.2 cm.] Good plus in very good dust jacket. Light edge wear to boards. Top edge soiled, a little soiling to endpapers, tape mark on front free endpaper, but text is clean. Jacket is slightly wrinkled and bumped at the head of the spine panel, and shows some sun. FIRST EDITION of the author's first book. No. 39 of 999 copies numbered and signed by the author. PRESENTATION INSCRIPTION BY THE AUTHOR (unsigned), on the dedication page. Also present are a TYPED LETTER SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR, an AUTOGRAPH NOTE SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR, and an AUTOGRAPH POEM (unsigned), all laid-in. The presentation inscription reads: "For Eleanor Jeffrey Schoberlin, whose conversation deserves a Boswell." Mrs. Schoberlin, of Phoenix, had some aspirations as an author and corresponded with a number of contemporary writers. Her husband was Melvin Harold Schoberlin (1912-1977), a noted Stephen Crane scholar and collector. The one-page typed letter signed, with mailing envelope, is addressed to Mrs. Schoberlin and dated April 30, 1953. Fulbeck mentions the "Berkeley Activists" and discusses his views on the New Criticism at some length. The one-page autograph note signed, with mailing envelope postmarked Dec. 30, 1957, is also addressed to Mrs. Schoberlin. It is apparently a reply to a Christmas card. Fulbeck mentions working on his dissertation, which he completed in 1960. The two-stanza autograph poem is found in an envelope that is addressed to Mrs. Schoberlin and postmarked Nov. 4, 1951. It reads: "Maybe once he said | `I'm not fitted for | Flying' - but we learn | Quickly in war. || Everyone expects | Miracles, then, | And gets them. -- The Board selects you, etc." John Frederick "Jack" Fulbeck (1916-2011) was the author of three volumes of poetry and served as professor of comparative literature at the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. He was an editor of the California Quarterly and was twice president of the California State Poetry Society.