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The Master Mystery, the 1919 Harry Grossman & Burton L. King silent mystery magic crime serial ("A super-serial"; "By Arthur B. Reeve and Charles A. Logue"; Houdini is an agent of the Justice Department, sent to investigate a bogus giant company, which is well guarded, especially with the help of a robot, in the movie called "The Automaton", which was the very first robot ever to appear in any movie!) starring Harry Houdini, Marguerite Marsh, Ruth Stonehouse, Edna Britton, and William Pike. Note that this serial movie was Houdini's first appearance in a movie, and the producers knew what his fans wanted, and almost every chapter ended with Houdini captured, and the next one began with him making an amazing escape. Note that for years it was thought that 13 of the 15 chapters of this movie survived. But it now seems that all of the chapters exist, although they are not all in one place (at the last time that I read). Two different archives have multiple chapters, and between them, they seem to have them all. The great magician Harry Houdini only appeared in this movie and four others, and none of those were serials. Movie paper of any kind from any of those five movies is incredibly rare!
NOTE: Click on linked names to see a biography.

Important Added Info: Note that we have never before auctioned this hardcover book!

Note that this is the Grosset & Dunlap first edition hardcover of this novel in its original dust jacket. This book includes the complete 15 stills, with one featuring the "robot". Here are more details about these books: Grosset & Dunlap was a publisher that made a deal with all the studios in the 1910s to publish "movie edition" hardcovers of novels that were currently adapted into movies (there were also some by other publishers, but Grosset & Dunlap printed the lion's share of these). They would republish the original novel as the movie came out (or soon after), and they would put a dust jacket on the book that showed the stars of the movie, and they would usually include several pages of images from the movie scattered in the book. These books were incredibly popular in the 1920s and 1930s, and they are quite collectible, especially if they still have the original dust jacket! Note that we have pictured the front cover, the title page, and the interior page that shows the publishing information, and one or more interior 2-page spreads. Because we know that the dust jacket is an important part of the value of this book, we also pictured the entire dust jacket opened up. Between that image and our other images, you should be able to get a good sense of the overall condition of this book.

Note that this is one of an amazing collection of 30 movie edition books (and a few closely related items) that were consigned to us from a man who has collected such books for over half a century! Included are some of the most rare and desirable of these books, and all have the original dust jackets (many times such books lost their dust jackets over the years and they are far more rare with the dust jacket). This is a very rare opportunity to obtain one or more of these books, most of which we have either never auctioned before or only auctioned once before!

Note: We have 13 images of this book, but due to a space limitation, only TEN of the 13 images are displayed above. However, there is a "supersize" link to the right of those images that lets you see the other 3.

Our address for UPS or FedEx only is:
Bruce Hershenson,
306 Washington Avenue, West Plains, MO 65775