Vintage 1925 Edition of Ring Lardner’s “You Know Me Al: A Busher’s Letters.”
Lot 361. Vintage 1925 Edition of Ring Lardner’s “You Know Me Al: A Busher’s Letters.” In this 247-page vg hardback, Lardner tells baseball-related stories through letters from Jack Keefe, a fictional baseball player, to his friend in Indiana. Keefe has a strong pitching arm but, among many diminishing characteristics, is also arrogant, strong-willed, self-centered, gullible and “misundereducated.” Through letters that are barely literate, he details his life and experiences in and around professional baseball. The situations Keefe faces and the way he writes about them provide humorous, entertaining reading. The stories formed the basis of a “You Know Me Al” comic strip from 1922-25. Lardner was a sports columnist for the “Chicago Tribune,” satirist and short-story writer who was admired by Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf and F. Scott Fitzgerald. They especially respected his gift for dialog, which is evident in this book. Minimum Bid $10.
