More gambolings.

I'm so thwilled! I just got all three of the Keith Preston books I ordered and they're just gorgeous. More than that, they're brill on the inside too--I'm so excited to own these (The Top o' the Column, Pot Shots From Pegasus and Types of Pan). Need to get the other two (two?) someday. I remember visiting copies in the top floor of the Harold Washington Library ten years ago when I first got obsessed with Preston, which, like many, started when I read the famous lil poem "The Liberators":

Among our literary scenes,
Saddest this sight to me,
The graves of little magazines
That died to make verse free

...and, like many, used it for a frontispiece quote (this case in my zine). That was before the days of crazydelicious antiquarian booksellin' on the web. Never thought I'd actually own some Prestons. Whee! He really is wonderful--and contemporary. Not to mention (see, it all relates)--Pascal Covici/Covici Friede published two of these books, Donald Friede being, of course, MFKF's third husband. Always been kind of fascinated with Pat Covici, and not really for the Steinbeck angle.

Anyhow, how fun. My copy of The Top o' the Column has got fountain pen-ed comments from a student from 1926. Here's one ("Pop Criticism"):

Of books how few
We find just right;
Some are too-too
And some not quite.