Seven Keys to Baldpate [Photoplay Edition]

New York: Grosset & Dunlap. Very Good+ in Fair dj. [1925] (c.1911). First Edition Thus. Hardcover. [good sound copy, minor wear to extremities, a little dust-soiling to top of text block; the jacket is heavily worn, missing about 2-1/2 inches from bottom of spine, large chip at left edge of rear panel, small bits of paper loss at several corners, various small tears and creases]. (4 B&W film stills) The first novel by the author who would later achieve lasting fame as the creator of Charlie Chan, this "mystery romance" about a young novelist who sequesters himself in an isolated mountain inn in order to concentrate on writing a novel was a big hit when it first appeared as a newspaper and magazine serial in January 1913. It was published in book form by Bobbs-Merrill the following month, and by September a dramatized version (written and produced by George M. Cohan) had opened on Broadway, where it ran for over a year. Although Cohan had not appeared in the play, he did choose to play the lead in the second film version (also his first movie appearance), released in 1917. (It had been preceded by an Australian film adaptation in 1916.) The present volume is the tie-in with the third film version, starring Douglas MacLean, released by Paramount in 1925; four more film adaptations were to follow (in 1929, 1935, 1947, and 1983, the latter under the title HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWS). NOTE that this dust jacket is not the original (movie-themed) version, but rather has been transferred to this copy from a slightly later Grosset & Dunlap printing of the novel. (The jacket can be dated as 1928, both because of the text touting Biggers as the author of the first three Chan novels -- published in 1925, 1926 and 1928 -- and because the artist's signature reads "Skrenda28." Skrenda, as most photoplay edition collectors will know, was responsible for dozens of Grosset & Dunlap's dust jackets in this genre.) .