"WE WILL ALL BECOME RICH AND ALL REMAIN DRINKERS": FIRST EDITION OF SELDES' THE FUTURE OF DRINKING, 1930

SELDES, Gilbert. The Future of Drinking. Boston: Little, Brown, 1930. Octavo, original yellow cloth, original dust jacket. $950.

First edition of this biting critique of Prohibition, in scarce original dust jacket.

Author, editor and cultural critic Seldes analyzes the experiment of Prohibition and provides an "ironic account of the two new religions in America: the fanatic religion against drinking and the equally fanatic religion of compulsory drunkenness." "As Mr. Seldes sees it, the battle is joined… His suggestion is that the religion of efficiency should win in the long run, since its inefficiency could hardly, even at the lowest valuation, fall below the inefficiency of drunkenness. Thus drinking would have no future. But all calculations are upset by the factor introduced into the problem by the woman drinker. Mr. Seldes maintains that this factor is an utterly unknown and unpredictable quantity. He asserts that ten years' experience has afforded no clue to the mystery of how liquor will affect man's female fellow-citizen and economic rival" (New York Times). Illustrated with 16 comic drawings by Don Herold. Inked owner name dated Dec. 1930.

Contents with a few instances of penciled underlining, otherwise very clean; dust jacket bright, with toning to spine and slight chipping at spine head. A near-fine copy.