THE RETURN OF KAI LUNG. New York: Sheridan House, [1937]. Octavo, pp. [1-6] 7-319 [320: blank], original pumpkin cloth, front and spine panels stamped in green, top edge stained green. First U.S. edition. The fourth Kai Lung book. Published earlier in Britain as THE MOON OF MUCH GLADNESS (1932). "Kai Lung is a Chinese storyteller who tells one of his tales whenever he gets into a tight spot [like Scheherezade, as Ashley points out]. Bramah's China bears about the same amount of resemblance to the real China as Walter Scott's England of Ivanhoe bears to the real English twelfth century ...." - Waggoner, The Hills of Faraway, p. 149. "The stories are mannered and playful, less moralistic than they pretend to be, and constitute a unique series of literary confections." - Barron, Fantasy Literature 3-48. Ashley, Who's Who in Horror and Fantasy Fiction, pp. 42-3. Barron (ed), Fantasy Literature 3-48. Schlobin, The Literature of Fantasy 982. Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature II, pp. 827-30. Reginald 01827A. Neat owner's name dated 1937 on the front free endpaper. Touch of dust soiling to cloth, a nearly fine copy. (#177468).
Price: $50.00
"FIRST AMERICAN EDITION / PUBLISHED 1937" on copyright page.