TAFT, Allen Robert. Parade to Hell: The Story of an Unknown Soldier. New York: Cambridge Press. 1936. 8vo. First edition. Publisher’s navy blue cloth lettered in gilt to the spine and upper board, in the sensational dust jacket that somehow goes uncredited. A very good copy. The cloth clean and bright, the gilt lettering to backstrip a touch dulled. A few mild marks to backstrip, but sharp. The binding tight and square, the contents clean and fine throughout barring one or two single spots. The dust jacket unpriced and complete with small portion of loss around the spine head and, smaller, to corners, the spine a touch faded, and with a small handful of other smaller nicks and slight rubbing, but pictorially superb.
A screaming satire on nonsensical war, and America’s engagement in the First World War in particular. The publishers said ‘very clearly is delineated in simple, stirring fashion, the subtle, revolutionary differences between the mad, careless optimism and thirst for glory . . . of youth—when it is young; and the illusion-destroyed, bitter philosophy of youth grown suddenly and prematurely old, at the brink of chaos and oblivion. Crosses, row on row; epitaphs written in blood . . . melting in the sun.’ (blurb). Throughout, the protagonist, Victor Catalano, is drawn away from the life he so wishes to lead—alongside his lover, always—to enter a parade to Hell, amid trench warfare and death-dealing air machines in Alsace. And throughout, too, he and his similar brothers in arms question war in all its brutality and absurdity, questions about neutrality and indifference, about the soldier, about their country, told with a simple sincerity. I can find little on Taft beyond the publisher’s biography—Brooklyn born and bred, author of another novel, Until I Close My Eyes (1932), entered service mid-education and travelled the US extensively, eventually pursuing a career as a lawyer. Uncommon in the striking dust jacket perfectly capturing the insanity of modern warfare at every corner.
TAFT, Allen Robert. Parade to Hell: The Story of an Unknown Soldier. New York: Cambridge Press. 1936. 8vo. First edition. Publisher’s navy blue cloth lettered in gilt to the spine and upper board, in the sensational dust jacket that somehow goes uncredited. A very good copy. The cloth clean and bright, the gilt lettering to backstrip a touch dulled. A few mild marks to backstrip, but sharp. The binding tight and square, the contents clean and fine throughout barring one or two single spots. The dust jacket unpriced and complete with small portion of loss around the spine head and, smaller, to corners, the spine a touch faded, and with a small handful of other smaller nicks and slight rubbing, but pictorially superb.
A screaming satire on nonsensical war, and America’s engagement in the First World War in particular. The publishers said ‘very clearly is delineated in simple, stirring fashion, the subtle, revolutionary differences between the mad, careless optimism and thirst for glory . . . of youth—when it is young; and the illusion-destroyed, bitter philosophy of youth grown suddenly and prematurely old, at the brink of chaos and oblivion. Crosses, row on row; epitaphs written in blood . . . melting in the sun.’ (blurb). Throughout, the protagonist, Victor Catalano, is drawn away from the life he so wishes to lead—alongside his lover, always—to enter a parade to Hell, amid trench warfare and death-dealing air machines in Alsace. And throughout, too, he and his similar brothers in arms question war in all its brutality and absurdity, questions about neutrality and indifference, about the soldier, about their country, told with a simple sincerity. I can find little on Taft beyond the publisher’s biography—Brooklyn born and bred, author of another novel, Until I Close My Eyes (1932), entered service mid-education and travelled the US extensively, eventually pursuing a career as a lawyer. Uncommon in the striking dust jacket perfectly capturing the insanity of modern warfare at every corner.
