Description

“TO JEAN WHO MAKES IT POSSIBLE”: PRESENTATION/ASSOCIATION COPY OF
THE CASE OF THE CARETAKER’S CAT, INSCRIBED BY ERLE STANLEY GARDNER
TO HIS LONGTIME SECRETARY AND FUTURE WIFE JEAN WALTER BETHEL

GARDNER, Erle Stanley. The Case of the Caretaker’s Cat. New York: William Morrow, 1935. Octavo, original black cloth, original dust jacket.

First edition, presentation copy, warmly inscribed to Gardner’s longtime secretary and future wife, Jean Walter Bethel: “To Jean who makes it possible—with love from Erle. Erle Stanley Gardner. Sept 1935.”

“In Perry Mason, the combative defense attorney who manipulates the legal system to vindicate the innocent, Gardner created one of the most widely recognized figures in American literature? Mason came to embody the ideal of the American lawyer” (ANB). This is number 7 of 86 books in the series. Hubin, 162. The recipient of this book was Gardner’s longtime secretary and, later, wife, Jean Walter Bethel. In the 1920s, when Gardner was still a trial attorney, he would visit the Pierpont Inn and have a steak dinner to celebrate his courtroom victories. It was there that he met Jean Walter in 1923. Immediately taken with her, he asked her to become his secretary. She recommended her sister, Peggy Downs. Soon, Peggy Downs, Jean Walter, and a third sister, Ruth “Honey” Moore, were all working together as Gardner’s permanent secretarial pool. They formed the core of the so-called “Fiction Factory” of secretaries and stenographers that took down Gardner’s dictation and typed it into manuscripts. The popular character of Della Street is generally believed to be a conglomeration of all three sisters, with special emphasis on Jean, Gardner’s favorite sister and, later, the love of his life. In 1968, when Gardner’s wife died after their 30-year separation, Gardner finally married Jean Walter Bethel (“Bethel” the remnant of a failed marriage early in her career). Thus, after over 40 years as his secretary, Jean Walter Bethel became Gardner’s wife. For decades after Gardner died from cancer, Jean continued his life’s work. Under her direct supervision, over a dozen books written by Erle Stanley Gardner were published between 1971 and 1991, five of them featuring Perry Mason.

Only light wear mainly to extremities of dust jacket. A lovely inscribed presentation copy with a wonderful association.