PRESERVATION PHOTOCOPY: ORIGINAL MATERIAL RESTRICTED

13 May 1940

Dear Mr Lewis:

You may remember that I sent you bound galleys of GENTLEMAN OVERBOARD, for inscription to my daughter. I sold that book for a year or two after publications then, because it was no longer on our shelves, I forgot about it, although I remembered it vividly.

One day more than a year ago Mrs Morris Fishbein, wife of the editor of the journal of the American Medical Association, came into the shop and reproached me vigorously for having overlooked a masterpiece. In fact, from her words, I gathered that I was a hell of a bookseller.

When I asked the book that had caused her reemphasization, she told me it was GENTLEMAN OVERBOARD. I asked where she had found a copy. She replied she had found it in their library. I asked who sold the books that went into that library. She replied that I sold them.

I told her that I had recommended to Dr Fishbein GENTLEMAN OVERBOARD and that he had bought the copy she had even then discovered. I told her, too, that I was grateful to her for reminding me of so fine a book. Immediately I ordered many copies of GENTLEMAN OVERBOARD, and have been selling it steadily ever since.

SPRING OFFENSIVE is an even more powerful book than GENTLEMAN OVERBOARD, and is as perfectly and beautifully written. Soon after the first of the year we moved to this new location, since then I have had no time to read the great numbers of books I usually read. Yet amid chaos, turmoil, and

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confusion I created time that didn't exist, because I felt that I had to
read that book. SPRING OFFENSIVE was a memorable and stirring experience.
My words can only inadequately convey the excitement I found in it.

Perhaps I was rash to promise, as you will see from the enclosed page of
our forthcoming bulletin, inscribed copies of your books, but it seems to
me that anything that will promote the sale of good books is worth doing.
Were your books less than they are, I would not have so impulsively offered
inscriptions. I am anxious, however, to sell as many copies as I can of
SPRING OFFENSIVE, not only because it is a timely book, and one that will
jar those who read it into realization, but also because it is fine literature.
In these darkening days it seems more important to me than ever before, not
only to sell books, but to sell the best books.

I hope, therefore, that you will consent to do this. Copies will be mailed
to you with the necessary return postage and label affixed to the wrapper in
which you receive them, so that there will be a minimum of trouble in doing
this.

Mr Herbert Clyde Lewis
%o Viking Press, Inc.
18 East 48th Street
New York City

vhr

29 May 1940

Dear Mr Lewis:

Separately, I am sending you a package containing six copies of GENTLEMAN OVERBOARD, and fifteen copies of SPRING OFFENSIVE.

The former are for:

Arthur Brayton
Dean H. Tatnall Brown, Jr.
Glenn Dallman
Edward A. Lapham
William Mullin
Les Tremayne

The copies of SPRING OFFENSIVE are to be inscribed to:

Arthur Brayton
Stanton Christianson
Ruth C. Clarke
Glenn Dallman
Elizabeth Watson Diamond
Senator Harry Hertzberg
J. Shurly Horwitz
S. Baer Keidan
Edward A. Lapham
Florence Luntz
William Mullin
Dr Rachel Salisbury
Lansing Thoms
Les Tremayne
E. H. Verrall

Double wrappings, postage, and a label have been provided on the reverse of the outer wrappings, so that the books may be returned to us with the minimum of effort on your part.

I am very grateful to you for your kind collaboration, and hope, soon, to be sending another lot of books for inscription.

Herbert Clyde Lewis, Esq
New York, N. Y.

Herbert Clyde Lewis
123 Waverly Place
New York, N.Y.

GRAND CENTRAL
ANNEX

Mr. Ben Abramson
The Argus Book Shop
16 North Michigan Avenue
Chicago, Illinois