signed first edition cloth binding
1934 · New York
by Howard, Sydney; de Kruif, Paul
1934 FIRST EDITION OF A PLAY BY OSCAR-WINNING PLAYWRIGHT SYDNEY HOWARD AND AUTHOR OF MICROBE HUNTERS, PAUL DE KRUIF--SIGNED BY HIM.
8 1/4 inches tall hardcover, gray cloth binding, title to cover and spine, inscribed front free endpaper, SIgned For Dr. William Winter/ in the hope that he/ may do even more than his brother/ Paul de Kruif. i-xi, 152 pp, 2 black & white plates. Light browning to pages, very good in custom archival mylar cover.
YELLOW JACK opened on Broadway in 1934 starring James Stewart and was later adapted into a 1938 Hollywood movie by the same title. Both were co-written by Sidney Howard and Paul de Kruif. The play is based on a chapter in Paul de Kruif's Microbe Hunters.
SYNOPSIS: After the Spanish-American War, in which more U. S. soldiers were killed by yellow fever (known as Yellow Jack) than in battle, the War Department sent a medical commission to Cuba to find, if possible, the cause and cure of this deadly tropical disease. The commission was headed by Dr. Walter Reed. Limited in its experiments by the fact that animals are immune to Yellow Jack and embroiled in government interference, Reed decides that the only way to test the theory is to expose his own men to the disease. O'Hara volunteers to allow Dr. Reed to experiment on him.
SIDNEY HOWARD (1891 - 1939) was an American playwright, dramatist and screenwriter who received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1925. A liberal intellectual whose politics became progressively more left-wing over the years, he also wrote articles about labor issues for The New Republic and served as literary editor for the original Life Magazine. In 1932, Howard was nominated for an Academy Award for his adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel Arrowsmith and again in 1936 for Dodsworth, which he had adapted for the stage in 1934. Yellow Jack (offered here) was praised for its high-minded purpose and innovative staging when it premiered in 1934. It was adapted by Hollywood in 1938 with a cast including Robert Montgomery, Lewis Stone, Andy Devine, Charles Coburn and Buddy Ebsen. After two Academy Award nominations and the Broadway success of Dodsworth, Sidney Howard was at the height of his fame in the late 1930s and appeared on the cover of Time magazine on June 7, 1937. Two years later, he was dead. A lover of the quiet rural life, Howard spent as much time on his farm as possible when he was not in New York or Hollywood. He was crushed to death in a garage by his tractor. He had turned the ignition switch on and was cranking the engine to start it when it lurched forward, pinning him against the wall of the garage. Howard was the posthumous winner of the 1939 Academy Award for an adapted screenplay for Gone with the Wind.
PAUL DE KRUIF (1890 - 1971) was an American microbiologist and writer. Publishing as Paul de Kruif, he is known for his 1926 book, Microbe Hunters. In 1912, he graduated from the University of Michigan with a bachelor's degree, and he remained there to obtain a Ph.D., which was granted in 1916. He immediately entered service as a private in Mexico on the Pancho Villa Expedition and afterwards served as a lieutenant and a captain in World War I in France. Because of his service in the Sanitary Corps, he had occasional contacts with leading French biologists of the period. After returning to the University of Michigan as an assistant professor, De Kruif briefly worked for the Rockefeller Institute (for Medical Research). He then became a full-time writer. De Kruif assisted Sinclair Lewis with his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Arrowsmith (1925) by providing the scientific and medical information required by the plot, along with character sketches. (Inventory #: 1505)
8 1/4 inches tall hardcover, gray cloth binding, title to cover and spine, inscribed front free endpaper, SIgned For Dr. William Winter/ in the hope that he/ may do even more than his brother/ Paul de Kruif. i-xi, 152 pp, 2 black & white plates. Light browning to pages, very good in custom archival mylar cover.
YELLOW JACK opened on Broadway in 1934 starring James Stewart and was later adapted into a 1938 Hollywood movie by the same title. Both were co-written by Sidney Howard and Paul de Kruif. The play is based on a chapter in Paul de Kruif's Microbe Hunters.
SYNOPSIS: After the Spanish-American War, in which more U. S. soldiers were killed by yellow fever (known as Yellow Jack) than in battle, the War Department sent a medical commission to Cuba to find, if possible, the cause and cure of this deadly tropical disease. The commission was headed by Dr. Walter Reed. Limited in its experiments by the fact that animals are immune to Yellow Jack and embroiled in government interference, Reed decides that the only way to test the theory is to expose his own men to the disease. O'Hara volunteers to allow Dr. Reed to experiment on him.
SIDNEY HOWARD (1891 - 1939) was an American playwright, dramatist and screenwriter who received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1925. A liberal intellectual whose politics became progressively more left-wing over the years, he also wrote articles about labor issues for The New Republic and served as literary editor for the original Life Magazine. In 1932, Howard was nominated for an Academy Award for his adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel Arrowsmith and again in 1936 for Dodsworth, which he had adapted for the stage in 1934. Yellow Jack (offered here) was praised for its high-minded purpose and innovative staging when it premiered in 1934. It was adapted by Hollywood in 1938 with a cast including Robert Montgomery, Lewis Stone, Andy Devine, Charles Coburn and Buddy Ebsen. After two Academy Award nominations and the Broadway success of Dodsworth, Sidney Howard was at the height of his fame in the late 1930s and appeared on the cover of Time magazine on June 7, 1937. Two years later, he was dead. A lover of the quiet rural life, Howard spent as much time on his farm as possible when he was not in New York or Hollywood. He was crushed to death in a garage by his tractor. He had turned the ignition switch on and was cranking the engine to start it when it lurched forward, pinning him against the wall of the garage. Howard was the posthumous winner of the 1939 Academy Award for an adapted screenplay for Gone with the Wind.
PAUL DE KRUIF (1890 - 1971) was an American microbiologist and writer. Publishing as Paul de Kruif, he is known for his 1926 book, Microbe Hunters. In 1912, he graduated from the University of Michigan with a bachelor's degree, and he remained there to obtain a Ph.D., which was granted in 1916. He immediately entered service as a private in Mexico on the Pancho Villa Expedition and afterwards served as a lieutenant and a captain in World War I in France. Because of his service in the Sanitary Corps, he had occasional contacts with leading French biologists of the period. After returning to the University of Michigan as an assistant professor, De Kruif briefly worked for the Rockefeller Institute (for Medical Research). He then became a full-time writer. De Kruif assisted Sinclair Lewis with his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Arrowsmith (1925) by providing the scientific and medical information required by the plot, along with character sketches. (Inventory #: 1505)