It's Curtains for This Book (Lettered Issue)

Hotel Splendide [Signed, Lettered]

Bemelmans, Ludwig

Publication: New York: Viking Press, 1941. First Edition.

Notes: A collection of short, comic stories about hotel life, by the illustrator best-known for his Madeline children's books. Bemelmans contributes two-color illustrations at the beginning of the chapters. The book was recently reissued and Anthony Bourdain called it "truly a great book." The Wall Street Journal described it as "an uproarious account of [Bemelman's] life as a waiter at the thinly disguised Ritz-Carlton in the 1920s. The outlandish characters he encounters include a con man magician, a murderous waiter, a dissolute Cuban marquis and a handsome Senegalese dishwasher with 'shoulders like two shovels,' whose dream is to become a doorman and wear beautiful livery."

This limited edition is lovely, bound in thick floral cloth from "the draperies of a famous New York hotel."

According to the colophon, there were 245 numbered copies and sixty copies for private distribution (that had a handwritten note to that effect), all signed. This is a lettered copy, a limitation not mentioned on the signature page.

Edition + Condition: First edition (first printing). A near fine copy, bound in curtain cloth worn through at one corner. In a very good cardstock slipcase with a chip in the edge of the opening and matching copy letter on the spine. This is copy F of unspecified number of lettered copies signed by Bemelmans. A very scarce limitation; uncommon in the original slipcase.

Item No: #363336

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