THE KINGDOM OF EVIL: A Continuation of the Journal of Fantazius Mallare

New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978. First Edition Thus. . Trade Paperback. Very Good/No Jacket. Hecht, best remembered today for his prize-winning scripts for movies and plays, usually about crime or comedy, ventured briefly early in his career into horror and fantasy with two short novels, "Fantazius Mallare" and its sequel, "The Kingdom of Evil," which as one reviewer has noted, "Here Mallare shuns reality altogether to retreat into a bizarre psychological netherworld." Mallare is kidnapped, enslaved and forced to work with other slaves to create a god, an inhuman entity that grows to enormous size before it is killed and the Kingdom is overun by homicidal mannequins. The Kingdom's inhabitants come to realize their world is a surreal figment of Mallare's imagination, become upset and bring the Kingdom to a suitable end. While "The Kingdom of Evil" did not achieve Federal Government confiscation as "obscene material," followed by a Clarence Darrow defense and acquittal, as did its predecessor, as a singular exercise in gothic surrealism, it makes one wish Hecht had ventured a little further into the horror and fantasy genres. The original issue was by Covici in 1924 and made available only in a imited hardcover edition. This copy, a First Printing, First Edition Thus is a 6 3/4 x 9 3/8 inch, 211-page trade paperback in green & black wrappers with a back cover illustration by Anthony Angarola, and with 12 full-page illustrations by Angarola in the text. Wrappers show some slight bit of surface and edge wear with lightly bumped lower corners. No tears, no creases, no chipping. Not remaindered. Text is clean, complete and unmarked. A rarely read side of a greatly under-appreciated American author.