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Playback
Raymond Chandler
CHANDLER, Raymond (1888-1959). Playback. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1958.
Dedication copy of the first edition, inscribed by Chandler to Helga Greene within a month of publication: ‘To Helga, the one and only agent, and a great many adorable things more. Ray. London, August, 1958.’ The printed dedication (Playback is Chandler’s only book with a printed dedication) reads ‘To Jean [Fracasse] and Helga without whom this book would never have been written.’ Helga Greene was the most important woman in Chandler's life after the death of his beloved wife Cissy in 1954: she was his agent, his fiancée (in 1959 during the last year of his life), and his literary executor. It was due to her encouragement that Chandler was able to finish Playback (in December 1957), his last completed novel. Laid in is an autograph letter signed from Greene to Maurice F. Neville (2 pp., 23 May 1982) regarding this dedication copy: ‘I hear...my 1st edition of...Playback is going to be kept in your collection. I am glad of that, as the inscription is rather personal. I have no memory at all of Ray's giving me the book, I'm afraid. He did not go in for such effusions as a rule - letters were different - he let himself go in those. Ray was of course around & about [in London] a lot at the time of Playback's publication, & he must have written in it on impulse. Katherine Sorley Walker [who worked for Greene] found the book in the office. Certainly I never asked him for an inscribed copy, & did not in fact collect them...’ All of Chandler's previous books were written and published during his marriage to Cissy, but none bore a dedication. In a letter shortly after her death he wrote: ‘It was my great and now useless regret that I never wrote anything really worth her attention, no book that I could dedicate to her'. This copy of Playback then, in fine condition, is one of only two possible dedication copies of any Chandler book. Bruccoli A11.1.a
Octavo. (Small strip of discolouration on free endpapers.) Original reddish-orange boards, spine lettered yellow; original dust-jacket designed by Patricia Davey, back panel with portrait photograph of Chandler by Douglas Glass (jacket with minor rubbing at extremities and small hole at front hinge); modern half red morocco box. Provenance: Helga Greene, dedicatee (1916-85; presentation inscription) – Maurice F. Neville (letter from Greene; sale Sotheby’s 16 Nov. 2004).