Nelson Hayes. DILDO CAY. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1940. First edition. Hardcover. Light grey cloth-covered boards, in illustrated jacket. 8vo; 329pp. With date on title page (at this time Houghton Mifflin followed the practice of including the date on the title page for first printings and removing it for subsequent printings).

From the Collection of Professor Roberto Severino, Washington, D.C.

Dildo Cay has been criticized by numerous publications and scholars for both its title and for Hayes's writing. Publishers Weekly even called it the "Worst Book Ever." While the title makes sense - it refers to a small island, or cay, in The Bahamas featuring Dildo cacti - it continues to intrigue the public and the book still encourages lively discussion and debate, even among Amazon reviewers. Despite this more recent criticism of the novel, it was appreciated in its time and was even made into a movie in 1941 under the title Bahama Passage, staring Sterling Hayden, Madeleine Carroll, and Dorothy Dandridge. (The book was later published again in 1960 under this new and less memorable title.) Despite its promising early success, the first edition of Dildo Cay is surprisingly scarce, especially in its unclipped dust jacket.

Boards with damp staining, soiling, and foxing especially on spine, joints, and top edges; offsetting and foxing on endpapers, light damp staining at top edge and fore-edge, pages otherwise clean and unmarked though very lightly toned as expected; jacket with lightly scuffed, with edgewear, including small tears and losses, spine lightly faded, and interior with staining including damp staining, soiling, and foxing, unclipped ($2.50); About good in fair to good jacket.