signed first edition Hardcover
1956 · London
by HIGHSMITH, Patricia
London: Cresset Press, 1956. Hardcover. Near Fine/Near Fine. First English edition. Nominal foxing on the foredge else very near fine in near fine dust jacket, with a small, faint stain visible only on the interior. Raymond Chandler's copy of Highsmith's second book, with his ownership Signature writ large: "Raymond Chandler. London. Feb. 1956." Of significance, Chandler wrote the screenplay for the 1951 classic film directed by Alfred Hitchcock that was made from Highsmith's first book, *Strangers on a Train*. Hitchcock largely discarded the two drafts of Chandler's screenplay in favor of one by Ben Hecht's protégé Czenzi Ormonde, and which later precipitated (truncated)