Spider Boy; a scenario for a moving picture

New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Near Fine. 1928. First Edition. Hardcover. (lacking the original dust jacket, but encased in a professionally-made facsimile reproduction of same; see 2nd image posted with this listing) [slight darkening to spine cloth, but otherwise a nice clean copy with no significant wear; pencil signature (see Notes) on front endpaper, vintage bookseller's label (Unity Pegues, Hollywood) on rear pastedown]. Satirical novel about an excruciatingly shy writer from Kansas City who goes to New York, where he meets with a notable lack of success until he "accidentally" writes a hit play by simply recounting the particulars of a notorious court case he remembers from his hometown. Before you can say "one-hit wonder," he finds himself in Hollywood, under contract to a movie studio even though he hasn't the slightest idea how to go about writing a scenario. His continuing bewilderment, however, presents no serious impediment to his Chauncey Gardiner-like rise to fame and success. The pencilled name that appears on the front endpaper is that of "Paul Bern," the famously-(possibly)-suicidal husband of blonde bombshell Jean Harlow. I cannot guarantee that the signature is that of Bern himself, or was written by someone else -- but what I CAN affirm is that this book came from the collection of MGM writer/producer Carey Wilson, a known associate of Bern's, and that this collection also contained a number of other volumes from Bern's library. In other words, this copy did belong to Bern. NOTE again that this book bears a FACSIMILE dust jacket, to serve the dual purpose of protecting the book from further wear and enhancing its appearance on the shelf; its presence has not been factored in to our pricing. .