First edition. An offprint prepublication excerpt from Somebody in Boots (and was formerly later as Chapter 9), set in Nelson Algren's hobo years of the early 1930s. Though intended to be published in The Windsor Quarterly: Modern American Literature - Vol. II, No. 3, Winter 1935, the same year Algren won his first O. Henry Award. However "most copies of this issue have blank pages for 'Thundermug' with the explanation, 'Censored by Commonwealth College.'" [Matthew J. Bruccoli (C18)]. This is the uncensored issue, a few copies of which were "surreptitiously printed" at the Quarterly's press, consisting of the four unbound gatherings the story was printed on. Three uncut quarto leaves, each folded twice, (paginated 205-229 [I]). 4to. Orange wraps separate but present, flat with creasing and toning along spine with tear at foot of spine. Pg. 205-230 staple bound with slight vertical crease at center, toning and light chipping at edges, chipping to top of page 213 but doesn't affect text. Overall a very good copy of a scare Algren publication.

Item #339769

The back wrapper states; "Commonwealth College admits sorrowfully that it has censored this issue of The Windsor Quarterly. "Thundermug," by Nelson Algren, was accepted for publication in this issue, was advertised, and was actually printed... But a few days before The Windsor Quarterly was to have been bound and mailed, Commonwealth was savagely attacked by the forces of reaction in the state of Arkansas."