The Man About Town (Signed and Inscribed)

First edition, first printing.  Signed and touchingly inscribed by A P Herbert, dated December 1923, on the front free endpaper.  286pp.  Orange cloth-covered boards with brown lettering and illustration on upper panel, brown titles on spine.  8vo.  cloth a little worn, gently rubbed and rounded at corners and spine tips.  Slight lean.  Hint of toning on endpapers else internally neat, clean, bright and tight.

A collection of yarns and sketches from the versitile and quick-witted A P Herbert (1890-1971) – novelist and law reformer (and from 1935-1950 an independent Member of Parliament for the now defunct constitutency of Oxford University).  Herbert ponders the quandary of which club to visit for luncheon, the perils of foreign food, the tediousness of cocktail parties and the difficulties of finding the right golfing partner…among many other topics.  Through it all he reminds us of age that has gone but also that people never change, and always with wit and humour.