Lune

1929 · réf. 30431 — Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company. Very Good. c.1929. 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 modest shelfwear age-toning to edges of text block one-time owner's name printed neatly on front endpaper; contemporary newspaper clipping about the author's death laid in at the rear of the book SIGNED on the tipped-in limitation page by the author this being copy no. 271 of the limited/numbered edition. The author's first and only novel a tale set in Scotland Moon's birthplace about the travails of a girl born under the cloud of uncertain patrimony was the source for the hit 1930 film MIN AND BILL although the focus of the movie was shifted to the protagonist's grandmother played by Marie Dressler. The adaptation was co-written by one of M-G-M's top screenwriters Frances Marion who was a close friend of Moon's and to whom the novel is dedicated. Moon herself did some screenwriting in the 1920s at Famous Players-Lasky and M-G-M although the description of her on her Wikipedia page as "one of the earliest and most successful female screenwriters" seems a bit of an embellishment. The book was a critical sucess and a best-seller but Moon unfortunately didn't live to also experience the success of the movie: she died of tuberculosis in May 1930 about six months before its release. Many years later it was revealed to Richard de Mille the son of William C. de Mille director Cecil's older brother that Moon was his birth mother the product of her affair with his father; he subsequently wrote a book about it entitled "My Secret Mother Lorna Moon." 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. Signed by Author . The Bobbs-Merrill Company hardcover