The Betty Betz Party Book

New York: Grosset & Dunlap. Very Good+ in Fair dj. (c.1947). 1st Edition (presumed). Hardcover. [a bit of wear to the bottom edges and the spine extremities, one-time owner's name, address and date of acquisition filled in to supplied space on front pastedown, Christmas gift inscription from 1957 on the second front endpaper; the jacket (with the same design and illustration as the pictorial boards) is in pretty rough shape, with heavy edgewear, a diagonal closed tear extending from mid-spine to the lower mid-front panel, various other tears, some paper loss to spine, etc.]. (pen and ink drawings) "The Teen-age Guide to Social Success," providing "the lowdown on how to give and enjoy parties," including "sensible advice on how to handle problem parents and party pests, what to wear and how to act, tips on party food, drink and menus, a rollicking collection of party games, words and music to favorite party tunes, and special memory pages for recording birthdays and party high spots." (None of the special memory pages are filled in, however, which leads me to the tentative conclusion that the book's original owner may not have had much of a social life.) The author, described as "the noted teen-age authority," had also written a "runaway best-seller" in 1946 entitled "Your Manners Are Showing." Born in 1920, she graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1941, and went on to establish herself a nationally syndicated columnist focusing on the social lives of American adolescents. (She even had her own television show briefly in the early 1950s.) During the 1950s and 1960s she published several additional books in a similar vein, including "The Betty Betz Career Book" and "Manners for Moppets." Although this copy bears only the 1947 copyright date, the fact that it was presented as a Christmas gift ten years later (presumably purchased new by the giver) suggests that it might be a later printing; the unclipped jacket, however, bears no printed price, and thus provides no help in figuring that out. You do have to wonder, furthermore, whether this kind of advice, dispensed in 1947, would already have appeared old-hat by 1957. Were "Johnny Get Your Hair Cut" and "Soldier, Soldier, Will You Marry Me?" still considered "peppy songs," for instance, after Elvis had come on the scene?) .