EVEN before publication, Three O'Clock Dinner showed signs of being that usually unpredictable thing — a best seller. It was the Literary Guild selection for October, 1945. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer bought it for the movies. It hit the best seller lists within a few weeks of publication date.

The scene is contemporary Charleston during a few tumultuous summer days that changed the lives of the Redcliffs and the Hessenwinkles. The Redcliffs bear an old and distinguished name; the Hessenwinkles make up in vigor what they lack in taste and in social position. At the three o'clock dinner, the Redcliff clan gallantly rally to welcome Lorena Hessenwinkle into their sacrosanct midst. There are thirteen at table, but actually there is a fourteenth, Fed Redcliff, who died before the story begins.

Josephine Pinckney was born in Charleston, and with the exception of a year in Italy, two summers in Mexico, and travels abroad, she has lived there all her life. She has had two previous books published, one poetry, Sea Drinking Cities, and the other a novel, titled Hilton Head.

This special edition of THREE O'CLOCK DINNER by Josephine Pinckney has been made available to the Armed Forces of the United States through an arrangement with the original publisher, The Viking Press, Inc., New York.

Editions for the Armed Services, Inc., a non-profit organization established by the Council on Books in Wartime