Pinto Ben - and other stories [*SIGNED* to his frequent co-star]

New York: Britton Publishing Company. Very Good-. (c.1919). Unstated edition. Hardcover. (turquoise cloth; no dust jacket) [moderate wear to the extremities, and an unfortunate 1/2" rip in the middle of the spine]. (color and B&W plates, small pen & ink drawings) INSCRIBED and SIGNED on the front endpaper: "For / Dear Jane Novak / 'The Nuisance' / From / Bill Hart." Three short western-themed pieces, two by Hart and one by his sister Mary: "Pinto Ben -- A Story in Verse" is about his beloved pony; "The Savage" is a short tale about an Indian maiden who meets a tragic end; and Mary's story, "The Last of His Blood," is about a bulldog (who dies halfway through the story but then posthumously narrates the rest of it). The most interesting part of the book, honestly, is Hart's Foreword, in which he writes about his early life in the Dakota Territories, and how he got into showbiz and ultimately the movies, where his gritty Western pictures made him a huge star. (He also notes that his two stories were published in the New York Morning Telegraph "long before I ever dreamed of motion pictures." Mary's story, too, had been previously published.) This copy's inscribee, Jane Novak, was a frequent Hart co-star, appearing with him in five pictures between 1918 and 1921, and was at one time engaged to be married to him; and now we know that his nickname or pet name for her was "The Nuisance." (Note re the binding: every other copy of this book I've ever seen has been quarter-bound, beige cloth spine over paper-covered boards, so I don't know what to make of this one; unfortunately the book bears only the copyright date, and the inscription is undated Signed by One Author .