This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 8/17/2024
MAURER, David (1906 – 81). The Big Con. Indianapolis and New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, (1940). FIRST EDITION. Red cloth lettered gilt, with publisher’s jacket (faded, and heavily reinforced with brown paper to verso). 8vo. Ownership signature of actor Broderick Crawford to front free endpaper. Later slipcase. Page edges chipped at rear; very good.
Based on the author’s extensive research with underworld luminaries in the 1930s, material from The Big Con was used – without Maurer’s permission – as the basis of the 1976 Best Picture Oscar-winning film The Sting starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman. After Maurer filed a $10 million lawsuit against the studio for copyright infringement, the matter was settled out of court.