La Bohème

London: The Readers Library Publishing Company Ltd.. Very Good+ in Very Good+ dj. [1926]. First Edition Thus. Hardcover. [light shelfwear, binding intact and square, a bit of age-toning and light spotting to edges of text block; the jacket is quite nice, with just a teeny bit of paper loss at a few corners, and a couple of old internal tape repairs to the upper spine corners]. (Readers Library, no. 198) Series Small-format British photoplay edition (about the size of a modern-day mass-market paperback), a "Readers Library Film Edition" novelization of the 1926 M-G-M silent film starring John Gilbert and Lillian Gish (both pictured in the front and rear jacket illustrations). This is not a novelization of the film, but rather a version of the original 1848 novel (itself the basis for the more famous Puccini opera) rendered "in popular form," allegedly "newly translated for this edition"; unlike many of the RL Film Editions, though, this one has NO film stills bound in with the text, although condition-wise it's a superior copy of this ultra-cheaply produced book. Also, somewhat uncommonly for this series, it boasts credited dust jacket art, by one A.S. Merritt. (NOTE that this has been tagged as no. 198 in the series, but that this number does not appear anywhere on the book or jacket; it was obtained from the Arnie Davis bibliography of photoplay editions, which by the way is an indispensable tool for collectors of these attractive little gems.) .