RUNYON, Damon.

£30,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Guys and Dolls. First edition, inscribed by Runyon five days before publication, "To Fred Kelly, who makes good kellys, from Damon Runyon, August 15, 1931". Fred Kelly was a well-known haberdasher near Times Square. According to their shop boy Martin Rackin, Runyon bought a new hat there every Saturday, and – always a gentleman of the working class – gave the adolescent Rackin five dollars a week to stay in school rather than work full time. The kelly of the inscription is a wide-brimmed fedora, wider even than the ones preferred by Runyon, who was so galericulate that the following Runyonesque anecdote about him must be true:"About noon one spring day, Runyon kisses his showgirl sweetheart goodbye and leaves his West 57th Street apartment. He strolls toward Lindy's Broadway Deli for his breakfast-luncheon and six cups of coffee. On the way, he meets a guy who tells him he has never seen Damon Runyon without a hat. Runyon decides to return to the apartment and get one of his 50 hats. (He bought more clothes than he could ever wear.) There he finds his girlfriend playing house with a gentleman named Primo Carnera, the heavyweight champ. When Runyon, years later, tells the story to a friend, the friend asks what a gentleman does when he finds his beloved in the arms of the champ. Runyon says: 'It's all in the hat—you put it on and leave in a hurry'" (Stein).Runyon's best-known work, a collection of stories set amid the gamblers, bookies, showgirls, and the other denizens of the

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