Books

First edition. Bottom of the boards rubbed thus very good in very good or better dust jacket with a couple of modest and professional internal mends (but no restoration), tiny nicks at the crown, and a creased tear at the top of the front panel near the spine. Inscribed by the author: "For Harold & Alice with best regards Bill (W. R. Burnett)." Burnett's first book, basis for the Mervyn LeRoy-directed film of the following year which provided Edward G. Robinson with his breakthrough, star-making performance and popularizing the genre of gangster films. The Literary Guild, a contemporary book club, issued the title shortly after the first, and that issue is often falsely identified as the first edition. Uncommon in jacket and rare signed. Along with Dashiell Hammett's *Red Harvest*, a candidate for the first significant published noire novel. *Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone.*.