- Title: Mince Pie
- Author: Christopher Morley
- Publisher: George H. Doran Company
- Estimated year of printing: 1919
Notes:
Bookplate: Charlotte Carter
Christopher Morley (1890 – 1957) was an American journalist, novelist, essayist and poet. He also produced stage productions for a few years and gave college lectures. After college, he began working as a publicist and publisher’s reader at Doubleday. In 1917 he became an editor at Ladies’ Home Journal and reporter at the Philadelphia Evening Ledger. He is best known for his first novel, Parnassus on Wheels, about a fictional traveling bookselling business.
This book, Mince Pie, is a collection of essays on a wide range of topics, including doors, Christmas, tea kettles, and haircuts. These essays are all fairly dry, observationalist-style, with a slight hint of humor, similar to Andy Rooney’s segments on 60 minutes.
The George H. Doran Company started in New York City in 1908, and prospered during the World War I era. It merged with Doubleday in 1927, becoming Doubleday, Doran, and Company. The Doran name disappeared in 1946.
In 1928, Morley purchased the Old Rialto Theater in Hoboken, NJ, primarily to perform his own plays. Tucked into this book was a program for one of those plays, After Dark. The program implies that it was printed in 1868, but this must have been some attempt of humor or tie-in with the play’s story, as Morley wasn’t alive in 1868 — rather, this program was likely printed in 1928. The program contains the cast list, synopsis, and directions to patrons such as to not eat peanuts during the performance, and that children are only allowed at matinees. The reverse side of the program advertises several now-defunct Hoboken businesses, such as Hoboken Hofbrau (and popular German restaurant that went out of business in 1936) and Meyers Cellar (a German restaurant at Meyers Hotel, demolish in the 1930s).
Historical context:
This book was printed in 1919, the same year that Andy Rooney, Nat King Cole, and Jackie Robinson were born. This is also the year that Theodore Roosevelt, Andrew Carnegie, and L. Frank Baum died.