Gullible's Travels, etc. (Chicago in Fiction) [Paperback]

Ring Lardner (Author)

Book Description

Series: Chicago in Fiction | Publication Date: July 1967

"Gullible's Travels," the story from which this book takes its name, has to do with a trip to Palm Beach and was written in 1916. Readers who have never been to Palm Beach and who contemplate going there are warned not to base their budget on figures quoted in the story. In those days you could get a double room with bath at one of the two big hotels for a niggling $17.00 per day. That sum now is just a fair diurnal tip for the house detective. Everything has doubled or trebled in price in the past ten years, and still the influx of eager customers increases. Newspapers continue, from habit, to speak of the place as exclusive, but a person with money who can't crash in there these days would be blackballed from the Rotary club. And for all that, Palm Beach is worth a visit if you are not deaf or blind. The writer was there this winter for only a day, but was repaid for his trouble by the sight of a lady (a prominent society lady, too) in a bathing costume consisting of a big, floppy black silk hat, horn-rimmed spectacles, a black velvet doublet, with choking high collar and long sleeves, black silk tights and black shoes, a black silk umbrella, and WHITE GLOVES. This will remain for me the ne pluribus unum in swimming comfort until some more ingenious mermaid, sacrificing looks for buoyancy, shows up for her morning plunge in the working clothes of an Eskimo traffic policeman.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 158 pages
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press; New edition edition (July 1967)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226469026
• ISBN-13: 978-0226469027
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,409,190 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)