Description
ADVANCE PRESENTATION/ASSOCIATION COPY OF THE CASE OF THE GLAMOROUS GHOST, INSCRIBED BY ERLE STANLEY GARDNER TO HIS LONGTIME SECRETARY AND SISTER-IN-LAW PEGGY DOWNS
GARDNER, Erle Stanley. The Case of the Glamorous Ghost. New York: William Morrow, (1955). Octavo, original red paper boards, original dust jacket.
First edition, advance presentation copy, inscribed to his secretary and future sister-in-law, Peggy Downs: “To Peggy who is back at work where she belongs with—Yours, Erle. Erle Stanley Gardner. December 1954.”
“Gardner was, as Francis M. Nevins wrote in a eulogistic essay, ‘one of the great natural storytellers,’ a writer who left behind ‘over a quarter of a century of rich creative work which will be read and reprinted and reread as long as the art of storytelling is cherished” (Steinbrunner & Penzler, 166). This is number 46 of 86 books in the series. Hubin, 162. The recipient of this book was Gardner’s longtime secretary and, later, sister-in-law, Peggy Downs. 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. In 1968, when Gardner’s wife died after their 30-year separation, Gardner finally married Jean Walter. Thus, after over 40 years as his secretary, Peggy Downs became Gardner’s sister-in-law.
Book very nearly fine, price-clipped dust jacket near-fine with only slight rubbing to extremities and faint soiling to rear panel. A lovely inscribed copy.
