The General: A Farcical Novel with an Historical Background Based on Buster Keaton's Comedy Spectacle Film of the Same Name [etc.] [Photoplay Edition]

New York: Grosset & Dunlap. Very Good+ in Very Good dj. (c.1927). First Edition. Hardcover. [light shelfwear, front hinge a little weak, a bit of dust-soiling to the top edge of the text block, one-time owner's name rubber-stamped on front endpaper; the jacket is moderately soiled, with a tiny chip at the bottom of the front panel, teeny bits of paper loss at several corners, and a couple of old tape repairs (of the aforementioned chip and at the top of the spine)]. (12 B&W film stills) A novelized re-telling of Buster Keaton's great "comedy spectacle," based on an actual incident from the Civil War -- and a more pointless excercise in movie-novelization is hard to imagine. ("Poor Johnny couldn't see the railroad tie in front of the freight car. He had just made up his mind to ram the obstructing box car out of his path when he looked forward again. And the box car, I tell you, was not there! Johnny' half-shut eyes opened wide in childlike consternation. This must be a miracle! He was indeed the darling of the gods this wild day!") Imagine if the film itself were lost, and we had only this clumsily proseified version by which to judge it. (No, no, it's too horrible; forget I even had that thought.) On the plus side, however, the jacket is quite attractive and the text is illustrated with a full dozen stills from the film, as opposed to the more typical eight or four. This is also a true first edition, by the way, not a repackaging of a previously-published work like most photoplay editions were. .