Gopal the Jester: A Hindu Romance [*Paul Bern's copy*]

New York: "Privately Printed for The Library of Facetious Lore". Very Good. (c.1928). Limited Edition. Hardcover. (quarter-bound, blue cloth spine and yellow paper-covered boards) [good sound copy, with some age-toning around the edges of both covers, minor staining on the rear cover, a couple of edge-nicks, bumping and slight exposure of board at rear corner, vintage bookseller's label (Hollywood Book Store, "Opposite Hollywood Hotel") on rear pastedown; a number of pages are unopened at the top edge]. (pen & ink drawings) INSCRIBED on the front endpaper: "To Paul -- / Many happy / returns. / Eddie Sutherland / 1928." The sort of mild erotica that was popular with the Hollywood crowd in the 1920s and 1930s, this one "now first done from the Bengali into English" by Mr. Bannerji, with an introduction by Nirmal A. Das, "Member of the Royal Asiatic Society." (Which sounds pretty respectable; I wonder if it was a real thing?) This is No. 302 of a limited edition of 750 copies, "for private circulation" -- not all THAT limited, as these things go, but what makes this copy of unusual interest is its provenance: the "Paul" of the inscription was Hollywood producer Paul Bern, whose mysterious maybe-suicide just a few years later, shortly after his marriage to blonde bombshell Jean Harlow, would forever enshrine his name in the annals of Hollywood scandal. (The reason this is known is because the book comes from the personal collection of writer/producer Carey Wilson, an MGM colleague of Bern's, whose library contained a number of books identified as having belonged to Bern.) To add to the Hollywood provenance, the person who gifted it to Bern was Eddie Sutherland, himself a director of some note -- and a bit of a ladies' man, too, whose five wives included another sex symbol (albeit a reluctant one), Louise Brooks. (In fact, he may still have been married to Brooks at the time he gave this book to Bern: she divorced him in June of that year.) ****NOTE that additional postage charges will be assessed for international shipping of this moderately heavy book; if this concerns you, please contact us for a shipping quote before placing your order. As always at ReadInk, domestic Media Mail shipping is free.**** .