The Tents of Wickedness

Title: The Tents of Wickedness
Genre: Humor/Poetry
Author: Peter de Vries (1910-1993)
Illustrator: Robert Leydenfrost (1924-1987)
Publisher: Little, Brown & Company, Boston, Massachusetts
Year: 1959
Pages: 276
Format: Hardback, with dust jacket
Provenance: Unknown
Opening Sentence: "Charles Swallow was taking a bath, and as was his custom on such occasions, he had undressed before climbing into the tub."
Random Passage: "Her nails were pale green now, and her lipstick seemed brown, though that may have been a trick of the light. I became aware of conversation other than ours. A young man with pink hair was sitting on a carousel horse in a corner and telling a girl parked on a rattan stool, 'You can't say that about Bea Lillie, I won't let you.'"
Goodreads Review: "No writer was more adept at providing biting explorations of the life of white middle class suburbia in the middle/end of the twentieth century. Peter de Vries was able to satirize the 'sturm and drang' of the self important; and I fear that he is a talented writer who will be largely forgotten by future readers." — Doug Bowman, May 25, 2012.
Notes: Anthology from a once-famous, still-quotable humorist ("Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.") collects previously published poems alongside a domestic drama written in styles of other writers including Hemingway, Proust and Graham Greene. Here's a brief remembrance from the daughter of cover artist Robert Leydenfrost recalling the man's love of art and bird-watching.