THE RED PONY (First Trade Edition, Inscribed by John Steinbeck [from the library of film director Peter Bogdanovitch with a dramatic and heart-breaking inscription about his murdered lover, actress and Playboy model Dorothy Stratten]

Steinbeck, John. The Red Pony. New York: Viking Press, 1945. First illustrated edition, with watercolors by Wesley Dennis throughout. Publisher's textured beige cloth with a watercolor illustration of a chestnut-colored foal pasted to the upper board. A Near Fine copy with minor wear, housed in its original publisher’s slipcase. Signed and inscribed by Steinbeck to a named recipient; signed trade editions of The Red Pony are vastly harder to find than the signed limited first edition first issued in 1937. This copy is additionally signed by noted director Peter Bogdanovich [ Director of “The Last Picture Show] with his library stamp to the front paste-down. This inscription makes this copy of The Red Pony surely the most heart-breaking imaginable, inscribed with real pathos and authentic tenderness to the 12-year old sister of Dorothy Stratten (actress, Playboy Playmate, and Bogdanovitch’s lover) who was murdered only two months earlier by her estranged husband. The Red Pony served as the source material for the 1949 American film of the same name, directed by Lewis Milestone and starring Myrna Loy and Robert Mitchum. The film notably features a screenplay adapted by Steinbeck himself. A unique copy with a dramatic and powerful association rarely encountered in the world of antiquarian bookselling.…