Description

FIRST EDITION OF THE CASE OF THE CROOKED CANDLE, WARMLY INSCRIBED BY ERLE STANLEY GARDNER

GARDNER, Erle Stanley. The Case of the Crooked Candle. New York: William Morrow, 1944. Octavo, original black cloth, original dust jacket.

First edition, inscribed: “To ‘Bimbo’ with all of the very best from a very grateful and sincere friend. Yours, Erle. Erle Stanley Gardner. March 1945.”

“Of the Perry Mason cases we know, this is the closest to a true detective story. The details of the boat grounded at low tide with a corpse in the cabin are superbly handled, and the rest of the story—motives and characters—is both believable and reasonably straightforward. The courtroom scene, likewise, is full of good points; there is a final adventure and smashup? It is an absolutely first-rate job” (Barzun & Taylor 1412). This is number 24 of 86 books in the series. Hubin, 162. Bookseller ticket. Due to wartime standards for book production, attractive copies of this title are quite scarce.

Book near-fine with only mild embrowning to text and light rubbing to extremities, very fragile dust jacket with a bit of expert restoration to extremities. A lovely inscribed copy.