Picture: A Story About Hollywood.

First Edition of "the best book on Hollywood ever published" Lillian Ross' Picture: A Story About Hollywood; Inscribed by her in the year of publication

Picture: A Story About Hollywood.

ROSS, Lillian.

Item Number: 5649

New York: Rinehart & Company, 1952.

First edition of Ross’ classic account of the making of John Huston’s The Red Badge of Courage. Octavo, original cloth. Inscribed by the author in the month of publication, “To Brendan, a mysterious and delightful continent, With my warmest affection. Lillian December 2, 1952.” Near fine in a near fine dust jacket with some toning to the spine.

In the spring of 1950, when New Yorker staff writer Lillian Ross heard that John Huston was planning to make a film of Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage, she decided she would follow the movie's progress "in order to learn whatever I might learn about the American motion-picture industry." What resulted was Picture, which Newsweek has called "the best book on Hollywood ever published." Picture received raves from the worlds of film and literature in equal measure for its unforgettable portrait of the language, the ways, and the preoccupations of Hollywood: Charlie Chaplin called Picture "brilliant and sagacious" and legendary editor William Shawn termed it "the definitive book on the Hollywood community." Chosen as one of the Top 100 Works of U.S. Journalism of the Twentieth Century were chosen by the New York University Department of Journalism.

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