“MING THE MERCILESS ENTERS, RIDING BETWEEN THE JAWS OF DEATH”

GRAY, Harold. Flash Gordon: The Tournament of Death. Chicago: Pleasure Books, (1935). Slim, square octavo, original printed pictorial paper boards, pictorial pop-up endpapers. $1500.

First edition, with numerous in-text black-and-white illustrations and three two-page color “pop-ups” (two of which serve as endpapers) in excellent, working condition.

"As the Depression years deepened, American book publishers sought ways to rekindle book buying… Blue Ribbon Publishing of New York found a combination that proved successful. They animated Walt Disney characters and fairy tales with pop ups," becoming "the first publisher to use the term… to describe movable illustrations" (Montanaro, xix). Produced in cooperation with paper engineer Harold Lentz, these are the first modern pop-up books produced in America, following a series of British pop-ups by Brown and Giraud in the 1930s under the imprint Bookano. Montanaro, 94.

All pop-ups bright and intact. A beautiful, fine copy.