Description

PRESENTATION COPY OF THE CASE OF THE MOTH-EATEN MINK,
INSCRIBED BY ERLE STANLEY GARDNER TO HIS STENOGRAPHER

GARDNER, Erle Stanley. The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink. New York: William Morrow, (1952). Octavo, original red paper boards, original dust jacket.

First edition, presentation copy, inscribed: “To Louise with all my love. Yours, Erle. Erle Stanley Gardner. December 1952.”

“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 39 of 86 books in the series. Hubin, 163. Louise was one of Gardner’s full-time stenographers, who he referred to collectively as “The Fiction Factory.” “All in all, his factory produced more than a million words per year,” which helped to explain Gardner’s astonishing productivity (NPR).

Book near-fine, dust jacket very good with some edge-wear and minor soiling. An attractive inscribed copy.