I have been in the rare and antiquarian book business for over forty years; my family has been in the rare books business since 1876. Rare books are in my blood.
"Gentlemen Prefer Blondes"
New York: Boni & Liveright, 1925. Item #06601
“Kissing Your Hand May Make You Feel Very, Very Good…”
“Anita Loos’s presentation copy to MGM director Edward Sedgwick,
Linking one of the great Jazz Age novels directly to Hollywood’s golden age.”
LOOS, Anita. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. The Illuminating Diary of a Professional Lady. Intimately Illustrated by Ralph Barton. New York: Boni & Liveright, 1925.
First edition, second printing, with “Divine” for “Devine” on the contents page.
Octavo (7 3/8 x 5 inches; 187 x 127 mm.). [1–10], 11–217, [3, blank] pp.
Publisher’s red cloth, front cover and spine lettered in gilt. With the color pictorial bookplate of Anita Loos on the front pastedown.
Inscribed by the author on the front flyleaf: “To Edward Sedgwick / with all best wishes / Anita Loos.”
In a contemporary red cloth dust jacket with black leather spine label lettered in gilt. A fine and important association.
One of the defining comic novels of the 1920s, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes introduced the unforgettable Lorelei Lee - simultaneously naïve and calculating - and established Anita Loos as a master of sophisticated satire. Written in the form of a diary, the novel skewers wealth, romance, and social pretension with a lightness of touch that belies its sharp intelligence.
Originally appearing in serial form in Harper’s Bazaar, the book became an immediate sensation, celebrated for its wit and for its pioneering portrayal of female voice and agency in popular fiction. Loos’s deceptively simple prose - filled with malapropisms and double meanings - remains one of the great achievements of American comic writing.
The recipient, Edward Sedgwick, was a prominent Hollywood film editor and director, associated with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and active during the transition from silent film to sound. The inscription suggests a likely connection within Loos’s extensive circle in the film industry, where she enjoyed a parallel career as a screenwriter.
The novel was later adapted into the celebrated film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, starring Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell, further cementing its place in American cultural history.
An appealing inscribed copy of a Jazz Age classic, enhanced by association with a figure in early Hollywood.
Price: $2,250.00