Today is Here [ Anecdotes , Poetry , Prose , Verse , Personal Recollections, Poetic Rhetoric and Rhyming Story / Stories , Enjoyable Reading ]

Blanding, Don / THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR ON PAGE 69

Published by New York: Dodd, Mead & Co, 1946, Classic Pulp Fiction

About this Item

Embossed and gilt Hardback : hard cover edition in good or better condition, some slight wear to edges, as normal for age of book. Overall good copy of this title. Excellent read. A good book to enjoy and keep on hand. Or would make a great gift for the fan / reader in your life. About the author: Donald Benson Blanding (November 7, 1894 - June 9, 1957) was an American poet who sentimentalized warm climates and was sometimes described as "poet laureate of Hawaii". He was also known as a journalist, author of prose, and speaker. Blanding was born in Kingfisher, Oklahoma (during the period as a territory prior to that state's creation). He trained between 1913 and 1915 at the Art Institute of Chicago. He enlisted (for a year, or the duration of World War I plus up to six months) in the Canadian Army's predominantly 97th ("American Legion") Battalion. He then trained with them for trench warfare for eight months in 1916, but leaving service under unknown circumstances a few days before the unit shipped out for Europe. (He omitted reference to that service and training a year later in joining the U.S. military.) Blanding soon became suddenly fascinated by Hawaii and traveled there, staying for the year until his enlistment in the U.S. Army in December, 1917. Entering as an infantry private, he underwent officer training and was commissioned a 2nd lieutenant before being discharged in December, 1918, soon after the Armistice. He pursued further art studies in 1920, in Paris and London, traveled in Central America and the Yucatan, and resumed living in Honolulu in 1921. Finding work as an artist in an advertising agency, he happened into two years of writing poems published daily in the Honolulu Star Bulletin for an advertiser. These featured local people and events, and became well-known and popular -- whether because of or in spite of always mentioning the Aji-No-Moto brand of MSG. The popularity of these ad-poems led Blanding to follow the advice of newspaper colleagues by publishing a collection of his poetry in 1923. When his privately published 2000 copies quickly sold out, he followed it with a commercially published edition the same year, and with additional verse and prose books. For his fifth book in 1928, he no longer used a local or West Coast publisher, but the New York publisher Dodd, Mead & Company. The result, Vagabond's House, was reviewed promptly by the New York Times, and was a great commercial success.

Seller Inventory # 5021044

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Today is Here [ Anecdotes , Poetry , Prose , Verse , Personal Recollections, Poetic Rhetoric and Rhyming Story / Stories , Enjoyable Reading ]
• Publisher: New York: Dodd, Mead & Co, 1946, Classic Pulp Fiction
• Binding: Hard Back
• Illustrator: Fully Illustrated
• Condition: Good Clean Cond.
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Dust Jacket
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Book Type: Book
• Seller catalogs:
  • Signed By Author