CAMELOT FOR THE JAZZ AGE

Erskine, John (1879–1951)

Galahad: Enough of His Life to Explain His Reputation [Signed and dated by John Erskine]

Indianapolis: TThe Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1926. First Edition, First Printing. Hardcover with Dust Jacket.

CAMELOT FOR THE JAZZ AGE — A WITTY REINVENTION OF GALAHAD — SIGNED AND DATED BY ERSKINE IN 1926 — IN THE ORIGINAL $2.50 DUST JACKET.
John Erskine's comic and psychologically modern reworking of the Galahad legend, following the success of The Private Life of Helen of Troy. Rather than treating the famously pure knight with medieval solemnity, Erskine brings Galahad, Guinevere, Lancelot, and Arthur into the social and sexual attitudes of the 1920s.

CAMELOT THROUGH MODERN EYES.
Published late in 1926, the novel was immediately noticed as another of Erskine's contemporary treatments of inherited legend. The New Yorker recommended it as life in Camelot presented in Erskine's characteristic manner, while contemporary promotion emphasized his transformation of the medieval legend into modern terms.

SIGNED IN THE MONTH OF PUBLICATION.
This copy is signed and dated by Erskine on December 14, 1926, and retains the original price-clipped? Wait user says price present. Need correct.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS: FIRST EDITION IN THE ORIGINAL JACKET.
Original pictorial dust jacket printed in black, red, and blue, with Greek-key border decoration and publisher's advertising on the rear panel and flaps. The front flap carries a description of the novel and the original $2.50 price.Octavo, approximately 7.5 inches tall. 340 pages. Original black cloth with red lettering and decorative outlining. Top edge red; fore and lower edges untrimmed. Printed and bound by Braunworth & Co., Inc., Brooklyn, New York. First Edition, First Printing.

CONDITION: Very Good in a Good Dust Jacket. Bindings tight and square. Text clean with light, even age-toning. Moderate shelf handling wear. Original dust jacket with the $2.50 price present, now protected in a new Mylar sleeve. Jacket spine sun-darkened, with small losses at corners and spine tips and additional edge wear and short tears. The jacket remains substantially complete and presents the original front-panel design clearly.

LITERARY SIGNIFICANCE: THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND RECAST FOR THE 1920s.
 Erskine belonged to a distinctly twentieth-century tradition of revisiting classical and legendary figures by replacing heroic distance with recognizable human motives. In Galahad, the Arthurian court becomes the setting for a sophisticated comedy of reputation, virtue, sexuality, and social expectation.

THE MAN BEHIND THE LEGEND.
Rather than simply retelling the Grail story, Erskine asks how Galahad might actually have acquired the extraordinary reputation handed down by medieval romance. His Galahad exists amid the complicated relationships of Lancelot, Elaine, Guinevere, and Arthur, allowing familiar legend to be viewed through contemporary assumptions about personality and behavior.

A CONTEMPORARY SUCCESSOR TO HELEN OF TROY.
The connection with The Private Life of Helen of Troy was central to the book's original reception and marketing, with the surviving jacket prominently identifying Erskine as the author of that novel. Contemporary reviewers likewise understood Galahad as a continuation of his successful method of bringing legendary figures into the modern world.

MYTH, PSYCHOLOGY, AND MODERN FICTION.
The novel consequently belongs both to the long tradition of Arthurian adaptation and to the interwar fashion for witty, psychologically modern reinterpretations of classical and legendary characters. Erskine's interest is less in recreating medieval Britain than in using its familiar characters to examine the assumptions surrounding virtue, desire, reputation, and human behavior.

SUBJECTS: John Erskine, Sir Galahad, King Arthur, Arthurian Legend, Knights of the Round Table, Lancelot, Guinevere, Elaine, Camelot, Medieval Legend, American Literature, Historical Fiction, Arthurian Fiction, Literary Satire, Humor, Myth and Legend.

Item #22434

Price: $65.00