Drinking from the Thorne Smith 3-Bagger

The last of the three omnibus editions of his work, the Thorne Smith 3-Bagger collected the popular novels Topper, Skin and Bones, and The Glorious Pool into one affordable edition.

Subtitled: A Ringing Triple of Laughs in One Volume, this 685 page collection was first published in hardcover by Doubleday, Doran and Company in 1943. Later editions were re-published by the Literary Guild and by Sun Dial Press. The Sun Dial Press editions are the easiest to find nowadays.

The cover art on the dust jacket utilizes a clever play on the term 3-bagger, which means hitting a triple, or getting to third base in baseball. Well, we all know the teenager phrases about getting to first base, getting to second base and getting to third base to describe one's "success" or lack of "success" on a date. So, what you'll see on the dust jacket is a baseball diamond with women in various states of undress at each base. Each woman is also represented as part of a particular image associated with the novel listed at the specific base.

You can see these details in the picture of the cover below.

You can often spot copies of this nice collection at very affordable prices on Amazon or Ebay but usually without the dust jacket featuring this fun artwork.