A SLIP OF PAPER INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY MYSTERY THRILLER WRITER ARTHUR SOMERS ROCHE.

- A slip of paper, 2 inches high by 5-1/2 inches wide & mounted on a slightly larger piece of stiff paper, is inscribed & signed in black ink: "Aug. 14, 1921 / Here you are! / Arthur Somers Roche." The right half of the paper & mount are darkened. A pencil notation appears on the verso of the mount with 2 small remnants of tape where the autograph was removed from an album. Good. Two years after graduating with a law degree from Boston College, Arthur Somers Roche [1883-1935] grew tired of the legal profession and in 1906 took up journalism with a job at the New York World. By 1910 he was contributing stories to national magazines and his first novel 'Loot" was published in 1916. Roche's writing career was interrupted during World War I while he served as a captain with the U. S. Army Military Intelligence Division. Subsequently he became one of the more prolific authors of the postwar period. Before his untimely death from heart disease at the age of 51, he wrote twenty-three novels and scores of short stories, often using his adopted home state of Florida as a backdrop for his mystery thrillers. Many of his stories and novels were the basis of silent films.…