THROUGH THE WHEAT
Thomas Boyd
Charles Scribner's Sons, 1926. VG, Later printing (1st Printing was in April
1923; this printing March 1926). Gilt lettering on green boards, no DJ. Spine
slightly darkened, but lettering still clear. No edgewear, corners crisp. A
nice, clean, tight copy. Tasteful bookplate, probably from the 1920s, pasted on
front end paper. Some foxing to title page & page edges throughout, but paper
still limber, not brittle, with text unaffected. 266 pp. THROUGH THE WHEAT was
recommended to Scribners by F. Scott Fitzgerald and received highly favorable
notice on its appearance from Edmund Wilson, among others. Boyd served with B
Company, 1st Battalion, 6th Marines at Belleau Wood, Soissons, St Mihiel and
Blanc Mont, where he was seriously gassed. Afte r t h e war he worked as a
journalist and writer, publishing nine books of fiction and history. He died at
37 of a cerebral hemorrhage. EXCERPT: "For a distance of two miles, from the
ravine to the village where the supply wagons were stationed, me n lay dead and
dying. In the woods and particularly in the gulley that ran through the woods
to the village, the thick yellow gas clung to the ground. Wherever the gas had
touched the skin of the men, dark flaming blisters appeared. Like acid, the
yellow gas ate into the flesh and blinded the eyes. The ground was a dump-heap
of bodies, limbs of trees, legs and arms independent of bodies, and pieces of
equipment. Here was a combat pack forlorn, its bulge indicating such articles
as a razor, an extra shirt, the last letter from home, a box of hard bread.
Another place a heavy shoe, with a wad of spiral puttee near by. Where
yesterday's crosses had been erected, a shell had churned a body out of its
shallow grave, separating from the torso the limbs. The crosses themselves had
been blown flat, as if by a terrific wind."
$85.00
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