Books: Unintentional Best-Seller

THE ITCHING PARROT—Jose Joaquín Fernández de Lizárdi—translation & introduction by Katherine Anne Porter —Doubleday, Doran ($2.50).

One of the most colossally popular books ever written, this Mexican novel, now translated into English for the first time, after 126 years of neglect, has been bought in the past by some 100,000,000 readers of Spanish. Says Translator Porter: "[It] is without dispute The Novel of the past century, not only for Mexico but for all Spanish-speaking countries." One press in Barcelona printed a million-odd copies annually. For millions of common people The Itching Parrot...

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