While the Patient Slept
signed first edition Hardcover
1930 · London
by EBERHART, Mignon G.
London: William Heinemann, 1930. Hardcover. Near Fine. First edition. Original green cloth with gilt titles. Bookplate of Hugh Hefner tipped-on to front pastedown, the spine is a touch sun faded, else near fine, lacking the dustwrapper. The second novel by Eberhart, America's answer to Agatha Christie. Presentation copy, Inscribed by Mignon Eberhart to Grace and Glenn Hefner, the parents of *Playboy* magazine founder Hugh Hefner, on the front flyleaf: "For Grace and Glenn Hefner with the abiding affection of the author, Mignon G. Eberhart, Valentine, Nebraska, June 1930." Accompanied by a letter of provenance from the Hugh M. Hefner Foundation. Grace Hefner and Mignon Eberhart were sorority sisters at Nebraska Wesleyan University and remained lifelong friends. Hugh Hefner was supposedly born in Eberhart's Chicago apartment, which she sublet to the Hefners while she was touring Europe with her husband in 1926. (Inventory #: 437464)