Dutch Treat

I just cataloged the hell out of this book because it’s beautiful and absolutely worth it.

Dutch Treat Club: Year Book 1941 “Total Offense”, 1941. First edition.

Privately printed yearbook for the “The Dutch Treat Club”, a society of illustrators, writers and performers established in the early 1900s and still going today.

(click on images for larger, NWS versions)

Wartime issue. 8″ X 5.25″. Paper-over-board, pictorial wraparound cover. Laminated/glossy. Photo EPs of nude women cavorting on a cannon. Unpaginated but approx 100 pages. Edition page jokingly states: “This edition is strictly limited to 12,500,00 copies (Berlin), 12.5 (London), of which every copy is number 1” (numeral “1” hand lettered).

Elaborately printed and illustrated. Filled with pin-up / girly art and cartoons from member illustrators including:

• Rube Goldberg
• Dean Cornwell
• Carl Mueller
• Arthur William Brown
• Otto Soglow
• Harry Beckhoff
• John J. Floherty, Jr.
• Frank Godwin (creator of the strip “Connie”)

Because this was a privately printed publication, the art is racier than other work from these artists and more explicit than comparable pin-ups of the time (i.e. pubic hair). Also includes a pop-up illustration by Tony Sarg.

Famous members of the Dutch Treat Club include:

• Robert Benchley
• Robert M. McBride
• Isaac Asimov
• William Morris
• Ogden Nash

and more. Some of the club officers/members listed in this volume:

• Clarence Budington Kelland (president)
• Edward MacNamara (actor)
• Harold Ross (founder of the New Yorker)
• Whitney Darrow (cartoonist)
• J. P. McEvoy (Dixie Dugan creator)
• Westbrook Pegler (journalist)
• Lowell Thomas (broadcaster)
• Frank Crowninshield (editor Vanity Fair)
• William Beebe (Naturalist/Author)
• William De Beck (cartoonist “Barney Google”)
• Cliff Sterrett
• Rex Stout
• Efrem Zimbalist

and more. Other features include: A list of club speakers and events, news/current event parodies, and a full list (with addresses and phone #s) of current members. Pencil inscription from previous owner “W. R. Steinway” dated “April 4, 1941”. Covers lightly rubbed/scuffed showing light tanning to spine. Bump with slight exposed board to lower front cover. Binding slightly shaken but solid. Very Good. Hardcover.

Apparently these yearbooks were well-known for their girly art but this is the first I’ve seen (though hopefully not the last). Listed for sale here but I’ll be sad to see it go.

And more Dutch Treat Annuals.