Description

PRESENTATION COPY OF THE CASE OF THE CAUTIOUS COQUETTE,
INSCRIBED BY ERLE STANLEY GARDNER

GARDNER, Erle Stanley. The Case of the Cautious Coquette. New York: William Morrow, (1949). Octavo, original gray paper boards, original dust jacket.

First edition, presentation copy, inscribed: “To Horacio, Emilio, and Carlos, with lots of the best from your Uncle Erle. Erle Stanley Gardner. —————- at Rancho del Paisano Nov 1952.”

“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 34 of 86 books in the series. Hubin, 162. Mentioned in the inscription, Rancho del Paisano was the name of Gardner’s sprawling property in Temecula, California where he brought his so-called “Fiction Factory” of stenographers and secretaries in order to work on his novels in virtual isolation, producing text at the rate of a million words per year.

Book with minor discoloration to endpapers, a bit of rubbing to spine ends, and faint soiling to boards. Dust jacket with minor dampstaining and light rubbing to extremities. An extremely good inscribed copy.