Catty Atkins -- Financier

New York/London: Harper & Brothers. Very Good. 1923. 1st Edition (D-X). Hardcover. (pictorial cover; no dust jacket) [solid copy, light wear to extremities, two tiny rips in cloth at top of spine, ownership signature (see note) and additional gift signature on ffep]. (frontispiece + 3 illus. plates) Fourth book (of five) in the "Catty Atkins" series, an early juvenile fiction series (published between 1920 and 1924) by this popular author who once referred to himself as "the best second-rate writer in America." The Atkins books actually filled a sort of interregnum in the middle of his other series, the "Mark Tidd" adventures, which comprised six books which published from 1913 through 1918, followed by three more in the late 1920s. Catty and his best buddy Wee-wee Moore (who narrates the tales) are small-town go-getters, somewhat in the mischievous-American-boy mold of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, although I'd be hard-pressed to tell you which was which (and it's probably not a perfect analogy anyway). Very popular in their day, the Catty Atkins (and Mark Tidd) stories, like their creator, are pretty much forgotten today. [NOTE that the ownership signature in the book is that of an Edward Sedgwick, and that the added gift inscription (in a childish hand) reads "Edward Sedgwick / From / Roy & Kay / Dec. 25, 1927." The only thing that makes me hesitate in linking these inscriptions to the well-known film director Edward Sedgwick (who among many other films directed virtually all of Buster Keaton's MGM features) is that the first signature includes two middle initials -- which look like "V.V." -- and Sedgwick was not known to use any middle initials at all.] .