Description
Signed first edition, first printing of The Kingdom of Swing by Benny Goodman and Irving Kolodin.
Octavo, 265pp. Black cloth, title in silver on spine. Top edge dyed black. No additional printings listed on copyright page. Solid text block, faint offsetting to copyright page, otherwise fine condition. Previous ownership bookplate affixed to front free endpaper. In the publisher’s dust jacket, $2.00 retail price on front flap, small chips along edges of spine, light shelf wear. A bright, near fine example.
Signed by the author on the frontispiece portrait: “To George / Sincerely, Benny Goodman.”
Housed in a custom black cloth clamshell, title in white on spine.
Benjamin “Benny” Goodman (1909-1986) was known as the “King of Swing” throughout the late 1930s, when swing big bands were at their most popular. Goodman’s concert at Carnegie Hall on January 16, 1938, is credited as “the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history” (Bruce Eder).
