The Hypocritic Days

Douglas Woolf

Published by The Divers Press, Mallorca, 1955

This is the first edition of Douglas Woolf's first novel, published by Robert Creeley's Divers Press on the Spanish island of Palma de Mallorca in 1955. Stiff plain white wraps covered by a folded paper cover, with a front cover drawing by Kitasono Katue, 7 x 5 inches, 140 pp. Near fine (mild sunning, covers; superficial scratch, front cover; pages clean and binding tight). "Douglas Woolf, (born March 23, 1922, New York, N.Y., U.S. died Jan. 18, 1992, Urbana, Ill.), American author of gently comic fiction about people unassimilated into materialistic, technological society. The heir of a prominent professional family, Woolf studied at Harvard University (1939 42) before serving in the American Field Service (1942 43) and the Army Air Forces (1943 45) during World War II. He also studied at the Universities of New Mexico (A.B., 1950) and Arizona. Subsequently he traveled throughout the United States and worked at a series of transitory jobs. His short stories were published in literary periodicals beginning in the 1940s, and his first novel, The Hypocritic Days, was published in 1955. Most of Woolf s longer works concern cross-country journeys. In his most popular novel, Fade Out (1959), an elderly man rejected by his offspring makes a comic odyssey to an Arizona ghost town. Wall to Wall (1962), the story of a car salesman s son traveling from Los Angeles to New England, is often considered Woolf s finest work. The travels of the protagonist in On Us (1977) are interrupted by a meeting with a movie producer, and The Timing Chain (1985) relates events that occur on a car trip from the Rocky Mountains to Boston. Woolf s short novels Ya! and John-Juan were published together in 1971, and some of his short fiction was posthumously published in Hypocritic Days & Other Tales (1993). Many of his later short tales were published by his own Wolf Run Books." "From 1951 to 1955, Creeley and his wife, Ann, lived with their three children on the Spanish island of Mallorca. They went there at the encouragement of their friends, British writer Martin Seymour-Smith and his wife, Janet. There they started Divers Press and published works by Paul Blackburn, Robert Duncan, Charles Olson, and others. Creeley wrote about half of his published prose while living on the island, including a short-story collection, The Gold Diggers, and a novel, The Island. He said that Martin and Janet Seymour-Smith are represented by Artie and Marge in the novel. During 1954 and 1955, Creeley traveled back and forth between Mallorca and his teaching position at Black Mountain College. He also saw to the printing of some issues of Origin and Black Mountain Review on Mallorca, because the printing costs were significantly lower there." (1722RO002). Seller Inventory # 4005

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Hypocritic Days
Publisher: The Divers Press, Mallorca
Publication Date: 1955
Binding: Soft cover
Condition: Near Fine
Edition: 1st Edition