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MOON, Lorna, pseud of Helen Nora Wilson LowBiblio.com

Dark Star.

1929réf. 82794Indianapolis IN: The Bobs-Merrill Company 1929. First edition first printing. Inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper "To Jean Hersholt a great artist from the author of this book Lorna Moon". With the bookplate of the Motion Picture Country House tipped-in above the inscription and two MPCH ink stamps to the front pastedown. The author Nora Low grew up in Aberdeenshire but eventually moved to the US and became a Hollywood screenwriter working on a number of hits in the 1920s including Mr. Wu starring Lon Chaney Don't Tell Everything 1921 starring Gloria Swanson and Her Husband's Trademark 1922 with Gloria Swanson and directed by Cecil B. DeMille Love 1927 and Anna Karenina starring Greta Garbo. She also wrote two semi-autobiographical literary works: the short story collection Doorways in Drumorty 1925 and the present novel Dark Star 1929 which was adapted as the film Min and Bill in 1930. Both were based on her childhood in a small inward looking town in Scotland and explore similar themes including "the particular codes and conventions created by such a closed community patterns of surveillance strictures of public morality evidence of private despair. They engage with the margins of this world presenting itinerants outcasts and misfits with a distinct lack of sentimentality. Low's work is also striking in its awareness of the position of women in the community: her stories deal with minutiae with networks of power which operate in apparently insignificant areas" ODNB. Though Hersholt one of the leading Hollywood actors of the early 20th century never appeared in a film written by Low the two may have been acquainted either socially or professionally. The bookplate records that this copy was donated by Hersholt to the Motion Picture Country House a retirement community for Hollywood figures that as president of the Motion Picture Relief Fund he was instrumental in founding in 1940. A lovely copy uncommon in such nice condition with an excellent association. Octavo. Original black cloth white cloth backstrip titles to spine in black and red red top-stain. With dust jacket. A little pale spotting to boards top stain faded. An excellent copy in the jacket with faded spine panel a few minor nicks and a short closed tear to the lower panel. hardcover

Peter Harrington · Royaume-Uni2 250,00 £GB≈ 2 677,68 €

Moon, LornaABAA

Dark Star SIGNED limited/numbered edition

1929réf. 30431Indianapolis: 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 books