Description

PRESENTATION COPY OF THE CASE OF THE DUBIOUS BRIDEGROOM,
INSCRIBED BY ERLE STANLEY GARDNER IN THE YEAR OF PUBLICATION
TO A MEMBER OF HIS “FICTION FACTORY”

GARDNER, Erle Stanley. The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom. New York: William Morrow, 1949. Octavo, original blue paper boards, original dust jacket.

First edition, presentation copy, inscribed to one of Gardner’s secretaries: “To Louise, who is one of the fiction factory. Yours, Erle. Erle Stanley Gardner. March 1949.”

“With a solid understanding of ‘action’ fiction, the Gardner yarns are a sure two-hour cure for anybody’s boredom” (Haycraft, 218). “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 33 of 86 books in the series. Hubin, 162. Louise was one of Gardner’s full-time stenographers, who he referred to collectively as “The Fiction Factory.” Periodically, Gardner would take the women to his sprawling 3,000-acre ranch in the California desert for isolated dictation sessions. “All in all, his factory produced more than a million words per year” (NPR). Gardner also referred to himself as “the fiction factory,” particularly in interviews.

A very nearly fine inscribed copy.