1963 First Edition of Tio Pepe by Mary Lasswell – Hardcover with Dust Jacket

Title: Tio Pepe
Author: Mary Lasswell
Illustrator/Artist: Robert MacLean
Genre: Humorous Fiction / Americana / Cultural Satire
Edition: First Edition (1963 First Printing)
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company / The Riverside Press

"Even before he was fully awake, Professor Elijah Potts knew he was in Mexico. Ever since his sixtieth birthday, he had experienced with increasing frequency the odd sensation of not quite knowing where he was when he first woke up. He decided that it came from traveling and moving about in search of interesting folklore during the summer vacations from the University in Schenectady where he taught Folklore and Fables of the Americas. But there was no doubt in his mind as to where he was this effervescent morning."

In Tio Pepe, humorist Mary Lasswell delivers a warm-hearted, witty slice of mid-century Americana set just over the Mexican border. The story follows Professor Elijah Potts, a sixty-something bachelor and university folklore teacher from Schenectady, New York, who spends his summer vacations traveling in search of regional fables. This particular summer, however, the professor finds his most interesting folklore inside a small paradise of an establishment: a delightful Mexican cantina named Cada Noche un Amor ("A Love Every Night").

The cantina's aging but energetic proprietor, the formidable Tio Pepe, is a man of legendary romantic prowess whose activities live up to his bar's provocative name. Complicating matters is Tio Pepe's wife, a woman who married him strictly for her dowry and now watches his every move with great caution, concerned that his wandering eye will lock onto a singular target—the young, mesmerizingly beautiful Cha Cha. Full of saucy dialogue, cultural escapades, and a celebration of great regional food and drink, Lasswell’s narrative transforms a mid-century vacation into a comical study of relationships, passion, and cross-border friendship.

Author Mary Lasswell (1905–1994): A Scottish-born American novelist and journalist celebrated for her warm, comical portrayals of working-class life across Texas, Southern California, and Mexico. Born in Glasgow to American parents, she grew up in the border town of Brownsville, Texas, where she mastered Spanish before learning English—a cultural immersion that influenced the vibrant bilingual dialogue and authentic borderland backdrops of her later novels. Lasswell rose to literary fame with her smash-hit debut, Suds in Your Eye (1942), which followed three eccentric elderly women navigating life from a San Diego junkyard and was later adapted into a successful Broadway play. Over her long career, she authored five beloved sequels featuring the same cast, wrote celebrated cookbooks, and penned sharp, engaging editorials for the Houston Chronicle.

Illustrator/Artist Robert MacLean: An accomplished American commercial artist and book illustrator whose lively line art graced the pages of mainstream fiction, anthologies, and children's literature during the 1950s and 1960s. Known for a distinctively fluid and expressive style, MacLean excelled at translating comedic character dynamics and specific regional atmospheres onto the page. For Tio Pepe, his custom interior illustrations and stylized dust jacket design capture the mid-century aesthetic of the era, breathing visual life into Professor Potts and the Cada Noche un Amor cantina.

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Condition: Very Good/Good. Dust jacket: On the front, chipped along upper edge, open tear lower right, wear along the fore edge; on the back, chipped along the upper edge, light soiling from handling; corners bumped; chipped at head of the spine, open tear at tail; front flap chipped at lower edge. Blood red-embossed orange cloth cover boards are lightly faded at upper and lower edges and spine. Name on front fly leaf else pages are clean, undamaged, and complete.