Break-up

Boston: Little, Brown and Company. Fair. 1931. First Edition. Hardcover. (no dust jacket) [FAIR condition only, although solidly bound and internally clean except for the initials of (I guess) a one-time owner on the front pastedown; externally, though, it's kind of a mess, with a number of small paper bits stuck to the front cover (which is also quite soiled), and a large ugly stain on the rear cover (I suspect the paper bits are remnants of the no-longer-present dust jacket, which was probably moisture-adhered to the book at some point)]. Novel about a sophisticated New York marriage that turns sour. The first of only two published novels by Ms. Wilde, a prolific short story writer and sometime playwright, who later became better known as a screenwriter, notably of the classic screwball comedies BRINGING UP BABY (she had also written the original magazine story, and shared the screenplay credit with with Dudley Nichols) and I WAS A MALE WAR BRIDE, both directed by Howard Hawks (and, for what it's worth, both featuring Cary Grant in drag). For those who are interested in such minutae, the dedicatee of this novel, "E.V.H.," was undoubtedly her second (of four) husbands, Ernest Victor Heyn. This novel was her first entree to Hollywood, as it was announced that Paramount had purchased the movie rights (although no movie was ever made), but it was RKO's later purchase of the Collier's story that became BRINGING UP BABY that firmly established her screenwriting career. .