IMAGE by Butler, Max - 1959

Vantage Press, 1959. Hardcover.

New York: Vantage Press. Very Good in Good dj. (c.1959). First Edition. Hardcover. NOISBN . (price-clipped) [solid copy, moderate shelfwear, light soiling to page edges, gift inscription (non-authorial) on ffep; jacket worn at edges and extremities, moderate rubbing/soiling]. Presumably-autobiographical war novel, much of which takes place in an Italian beach town. The author, an Oklahoma native described in the jacket blurb as "an artist who served as a rifle platoon leader with the 85th Division in Italy during World War II," writes of a young soldier from "an impoverished family in a southwestern town [who] is uprooted from his drab surroundings and catapulted into a new, strange world of war abroad -- as a rifleman at the front. [Surprise!] Emotional, longing to express himself through some creative form [an artist a-borning!], he comes into contact with Edward Jordon, a fellow soldier who has been a wealthy dilettante [like there's any other kind]. The boy,… Read More

New York: Vantage Press, 1959. Hardcover. Near Fine/Near Fine. First edition. Octavo. 150pp. Near fine in very good dustwrapper with modest edgewear. Inscribed by the Author and with notes on the endpapers about Sikhs. Presumably autobiographical novel issued by a vanity press about a sensitive artist serving in a rifle company in WWII. Author was an Oklahoma-born, Texas and California-educated artist who served in a rifle company in the Italian campaign. We may be imagining the modest homosexual undertones of the relationship of the protagonist to and older soldier "...who has been a wealthy dilettante" but it would require that we read more of it, which we are unwilling to do at this time. Author went on to a long teaching career in art in California.