Bright Pink Youth by Cecil Barr (Jack Kahane) first edition 1934

BARR, Cecil [KAHANE, Jack] – Bright Pink Youth
 
Paris: The Obelisk Press (1934)
 
8vo; Heavy paper wrappers with fold-over flaps; The striking illustration on the upper cover by G. Goursat, of a topless woman smoking a cigarette in a long holder; the spine and lower cover shows the press logo; The front flap displays a reprice sticker of 60 francs, with the lower flap providing information of the press’s releases including Miller’s Tropic of Cancer; pp [x], 11-332, [iv]; The upper cover with one small stain below the letter U in Youth, a gentle lean and creasing to the spine, minor rubbing to corners and edges; overall a very good or better copy that is without loss and retains much of its colour.
 
First edition published in August 1934. One of publisher Jack Kahane’s six books written under the pseudonym of ‘Cecil Barr’, used according to Kahane / The Obelisk Press Bibliographer Neil Pearson in homage to his favourite bar in the Cecil Hotel in Paris. Kahane would become depressed by the success of his ‘Barr’ books, given the heavyweight literary company he kept, that these books were often a source of deep embarrassment for him. Salacious, gratuitous and successful they were though with copies of the adventures of ‘Tommy Trans-Wood and his Wife’ selling so well, it needed a second printing and then a second edition in 1955. It is rare to find a first edition in such good condition. [Pearson A-31].