SEVEN KEYS TO BALDPATE - INSCRIBED TO DAVID CARB
Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Publishers, 1913. First Edition. Item #8159
First Printing. Octavo (19.25cm); cobalt blue cloth titled in gilt, with key motif embossed onto front cover; [viii],408pp, with frontispiece and four plates of black & white illustrations by Frank Snap. Inscribed by the author in a contemporary hand on the front endpaper to author, playwright, and fellow Harvard alum David Carb: "To David Carb / Whose companionship made 2 Mt. Vernon Place and the writing of this book happy memories in the mind of The Author." Gilt-stamped armorial red morocco bookplate of John Talbot Gernon mounted to front pastedown. Light wear to spine ends and lower board edges, lower corners gently tapped (though still sharp), with some darkening to spine, and one tiny stain to lower right edge of textblock; hinges sound; Very Good+, lacking the scarce dustjacket.
Laid into this copy is a TLS on the author's personal stationary, dated October 13, 1930, responding to a Mr. Maxwell and declining opportunities for outside work. "I have lately declined several excellent opportunities to employ Charlie Chan in radio advertising, but money means nothing to a Chinese, and the old boy is adamant. Constant association with him appears to be changing me, for now I feel it best to go on plowing my present field, no matter how fertile those far away may appear." 17 lines (136 words), signed "Sincerely yours, Earl D. Biggers." Two old folds, some toning, faint foxing, and offsetting from the morocco bookplate. Accompanied by old bookseller's inventory card for this copy, their holograph notes and description written in blue and black ink on a 3" x 5" index card.
A significant copy of Biggers's first book, centered around an author of mystery novels who is trapped in a what seems to be an empty inn during a blizzard, where the owner has bet him $5,000 that he can't write a mystery in 24 hours. While he believes he is in possession of the only key to the inn, he quickly realizes he is not alone, becoming embroiled with a revolving door of odd folk, thieves, killers, and $200,000 in stolen jewels. The book was an immediate success at the time of publication, adapted quickly as a Broadway stage play, and serving as the source for seven film adaptations between 1916-1983.
This copy bears an early and quite revelatory inscription to David Carb (1885-1952), who attended Harvard with Biggers and remained friends with him after graduating. Biggers had been working as a columnist for the Boston Traveler since 1908, and after the new owners fired him in 1912, began writing Seven Keys to Baldpate. "Huddled near the coal grate in his Mount Vernon Place room, he munched peanut brittle and wrote a chapter a day. Seven Keys to Baldpate, published a year later by Bobbs-Merrill, enabled him to marry [Eleanor] Ladd and assured him national fame" (Harvard Magazine, March 1, 2000). Carb, clearly, kept him company. Like Hemingway, Cummings, and Maugham, Carb served as an ambulance driver during the Great War, and after returning home, embarked on a successful career as a poet, historical novelist, playwright and drama critic. Inscribed copies of Baldpate are uncommon, with only one other appearing at auction (to George Matthew Adams, offered by Park-Bernet in 1963). Hubin, p.33.
Price: $3,750.00