The Moth

JAMES M. CAIN

Publication: The New American Library, 1950, New York

First Signet Books edition & first paperback edition. Signet Books 811. Inscribed by James M. Cain on the first page to Signet Books founder Kurt Enoch: "To Kurt Enoch / "Long may they wave" / James M. Cain." From the Kurt Enoch collection with a letter of provenance included. Kurt Enoch was one of the great enterprising pioneers in the history of paperback publishing. In 1948 he founded or co-founded the New American Library, Signet paperbacks, Penguin paperbacks, and several other seminal imprints. From the outset Enoch asked his authors to inscribe their Signet editions to him, each in the year of publication. Over the next two decades his collection grew to more than a thousand volumes, a physical legacy of the literature whose reach he had expanded and whose appeal he had redefined. Apart from all of the above, paperbacks are seldom found signed by their authors, much less with any kind of significant association. And not only is the association in this case significant, it is historical in that it marries the book object to the person who invented the idea behind it. A light reader's crease, light wear to the spine ends and a tiny rub to bottom rear corner, else a near fine, bright copy in colorful pictorial wrappers.

Inventory Number: 53313