KAUFMAN, George S. (1889-1961) and Edna FERBER (1885-1968). Dinner at Eight. Garden City: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1932.
8vo. Original cloth (spine and board edges sunned, some rubbing, light soiling, endleaves a bit toned and soiled); original dust jacket (spine a bit toned, edgeworn with several creased tears, some soiling).
FIRST EDITION. A WONDERFUL ASSOCIATION COPY, INSCRIBED BY KAUFMAN TO HIS LOVER MARY ASTOR on the front free endpaper: “To Mary Astor, a Typical Theatregoer – George June, 1933”. The affair between Kaufman (an award-winning writer, and notorious Broadway lothario) and Astor began in 1933 and lasted until 1935. When Astor’s husband wanted to embarrass her for the purposes of divorce and custody, he leaked portions of her diary. The story eventually exploded in the press in 1936 and became one of the first sensational Hollywood scandals. Strangely enough, although Kaufman was married at the time, his wife Beatrice (1895-1945) was nonplussed about his various affairs, as she was known to take lovers as well (she was a writer and editor, as well as a member of the Algonquin Round Table along with her husband). The work is also the basis of the 1933 film directed by George Cukor of the same name.