Gutenberg's Folly

According to the author, there once lived a great American writer named Mitchel Hackney who composed a series of masterful pieces clearly foreshadowing the work of Proust, Steinbeck, Ashley Montagu, Saul Bellow, Saroyan, and many more.

In Gutenberg's Folly you will find such literary appetizers as "Woman: The More Feminine Sex" which is outrageously reminiscent of Ashley Montagu's recent defense of the distaff side. Those who respond to the saga of our nation's growth will find in the small sweep of "South of Pulitzer" something that out-Steinbecks East of Eden. And lovers of the modern musical comedy, so healthily exemplified by Rodgers and Hammerstein, will take "Yo! Ho! Figaro!" to their own and nearby bosoms.

With this book Mr. Wallach makes his bow as an illustrator. He received his training in art in the New York City subway stations where he studied mustache-addition and front-tooth-removal under some of the the finest poster-defacers in New York City.

Mr. Wallach says in the Editor's foreword: "I realize full well that my choice of material will inevitably invite criticism. But no single book can give us Mitchel Hackney whole. It has been my intention to present the best elements, fully plucked and with all the fat removed, trimmed before weighing so that you are guaranteed more value for your money." What the Editor has not said is that none of the fun was removed before weighing, and the publishers predict that readers are in for a hilarious time.

Ira Wallach was born in New York in 1913 and has lived half his life elsewhere, although he is now back in Brooklyn. In the mid-1930's he traveled to the Near East. He operated a Diesel locomotive for the Palestine Potash Corporation and then journeyed to Egypt and Syria, writing for English-language publications. His fiction has appeared in various magazines. Since the war, during which he served for two and a half years in the South Pacific, Mr. Wallach has devoted himself exclusively to writing. His first book was The Horn and the Roses, a novel based on the life of the Flemish painter, Peter-Paul Rubens. Since then he has written How to Be Deliriously Happy, Hopalong-Freud and Hop- along-Freud Rides Again. He is a member of the Authors' Guild of America.