OP: Margery Wilson's Pocket Book of Etiquette

Pocket Books, Inc., New York, 1941. Paperback. Good Plus.

Silent movie star Margery Wilson (1896–1986) had a side hustle as the arbiter of charm and etiquette, writing several books on the subject beginning in the 1930s. This book, first published in 1937, was reissued with varying titles until this mass market paperback edition was published in 1941 as Margery Wilson’s Pocket Book of Etiquette.

Unsurprisingly, Wilson writes with humor and charm, as poetically philosophical as prescriptive. She also emphasizes what it means to be a modern adult with manners, recognizing the freedom to shrug off the reins of childhood but discouraging total rebellion against civility, “We have reached an adulthood mentally in which we can take our etiquette or leave it. But we’ve also learned that we had better take some of it.” 

Wilson further encourages exercising the muscles of social niceties so that it becomes automatic, allowing for more improvisation within that framework, especially as society was becoming more flexible and broadminded, shirking some of the stricter “Musts and Must-nots” of handshaking and introductions, appropriate attire for any time or occasion, conversation and correspondence, gifts and tipping, entertaining, etc. 

This is the fifth printing in the same year of issue in Good Plus condition. The glued binding is stable but delicate, the paper wrappers chipping, lightly stained, and creased but hanging on. The interior is clean and unmarked. Red stained edges. Good reading.