Love and Ella Rafferty. A Novel. SIGNED PRESENTATION COPY

8vo., First Edition; cloth, backstrip lettered in black and very lightly sunned at extreme head and tail, a very good, clean copy in unclipped dustwrapper, the latter very lightly frayed at extremities. A PRESENTATION COPY FROM THE AUTHOR WITH HIS SIGNED HOLOGRAPH INSCRIPTION ON FRONT FREE ENDPAPER. John Paddy Carstairs (1910-1970), director and author, was a stalwart of the British film industry for over thirty years. Starting his career as assistant cameraman, he quickly progressed to writing screenplays (beginning with 'Honeymoon Adventure' in 1931) and directed his first feature in 1934. He is best known for 'The Chiltern Hundreds' (1949), the first (and hugely successful) Norman Wisdom comedy 'Trouble in Store' (1953) and numerous subsequent vehicles for Frankie Howerd, Tommy Steele, Charlie Drake and Bob Monkhouse. As a writer he produced a string of humorous and semi-autobiographical novels, of which the present work is regarded as among the finest. This copy was inscribed by Carstairs at Pinewood Studios during the making of 'The Big Money' (1956) produced by Joseph Janni and starring Ian Carmichael and Kathleen Harrison.