Via MysteryScene’s blog and Oline Cogdill, I read about the Sotheby’s auction happening today of Raymond Chandler’s own copies of his novels:
Among the items will be a first edition of The Big Sleep, inscribed to Chandler’s wife, Cissy, and a copy of The Big Sleep dedicated by Chandler to himself, with the inscription, “For me without my compliments.”
There also will be a copy of The Blue Dahlia script; a first edition of the James Bond novel Goldfinger, inscribed to Chandler by its author, Ian Fleming; and a copy of James M. Cain’s novel Three of a Kind, with a personal note from Cain.
Do you think the one without compliments is discounted? I don’t need my reading matter to flatter me anyway, in fact, often I’m embarrassed by it.