1942 "Headhunting in the Solomon Islands" 1st. Edition - Caroline Mytinger

This red-cloth hardback (no dustjacket) is:

(from the flyleaf) "A fascinating account of an unorthodox expedition made by two young women to such places as the Solomon Islands and New Britain in the Territory of New Guinea, in the Southwest Pacific, to paint portraits of the native headhunters who inhabit those regions.  

In the face of unanimous disapproval, the 'expedition' set out, Miss Mytinger intending to pay expenses by doing portraits, along the way, of European residents of the Islands. She writes of her experiences with flavor and charm, giving a most coloful picture of exotic island life - of jungles and plantations, of native villages and customs - and her humor and anecdotes are superb. One shares all the comic and sad misadventures which she and her friend experience, their struggles with fever, Shanghai feet, moldy clothes, fire and earthquake. In short, one gets an intimate and realistic picture of such towns as Rabaul, of primitive life among the Melanesians, and of the more sophisticated sort on the plantations where the girls visited.

It is an instructive and amusing story, to which Miss Mytinger's really excellent portraits of the black natives add the final vivid touch."

A novel of 416 pages, from the private library of Marvin L. Mass. (card on back cover). Clean and tight showing only light fraying on the cover's and spine's edges. Included is a reprint summary from the Book-of-the-Month Club, though this is NOT a Club Edition.