Thursday, March 15, 2018

Book Review: Peter Graves

Book Review: Peter Graves
        
Author: William Pène du Bois

Date: 1950
        
Publisher: Viking
        
ISBN: none
        
Length: 168 pages
        
Illustrations: black-and-white drawings by the author
        
Quote: “Each ball has an antigravity force of twenty-five pounds.”
        
In this science-fiction fantasy Peter Graves, an irresponsible 14-year-old boy who doesn’t seem to do much thinking, meets Houghton Furlong, an irresponsible elderly inventor who has discovered an antigravity substance but not yet thought of anything to do with it. When the boy, who seems to represent activity without thought, and the old man, who seems to represent thought without activity, join forces they can do anything, but what they do, in this book, is have a few comic adventures before selling the antigravity substance for $50,000. Well, that amount of money meant more in 1950.
        
Here as in his later books, William Pène du Bois was inspired by a friend, the real world’s Houghton Furlong, who lent his name and face for artistic purposes. The improbability of the fictional Houghton Furlong’s inventions, behavior, or overall personality seems to have been a private joke. It worked well; other friends, including the model Peggy Moffitt, encouraged Pène du Bois to caricature them in even goofier ways.

Since it was 1950 readers probably have to accept that fictional Houghton’s work with “poison gas” has no real effect on the environment, on Houghton, or on Peter, and just sit back and enjoy the ridiculous adventures as they unfold. So, what’s not to like? Mainly that, for Pène du Bois, this was an unusually wordy book, with relatively few monochrome pictures.       

   

Still, if you’re collecting this writer/illustrator’s work, your collection needs this book...I rate the portrait of Houghton among both the most realistic, and the most expressive, of Pène du Bois’s images.



Peter Graves is a collector's item. I'm offering a price of $10 per book, + $5 per package (at least three more books of this size would fit into one $5 package), + $1 per online payment. I can't guarantee how long that price will be available, nor can I guarantee which of the several editions you'll get for that price. Prices may come down as more people offer their copies for sale--or they may go up. New-looking used copies of this book are on Amazon with prices over $200.



 
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