Scarce unsigned book: The Lady in the Lake. First edition. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1943. Hardcover with dust jacket (publisher's printed price of $2.00 present on inner front flap), 5.5 x 7.75, 216 pages. Book condition: VG/VG, with professional restorations to dust jacket including small areas of repaired losses and color infill at spine ends and edges. The Lady in the Lake takes Detective Philip Marlowe out of Los Angeles to investigate the disappearance of a wealthy businessman's estranged wife. As with many of his novels, Chandler based The Lady in the Lake's plot on various short stories he had previously written for literary magazines such as The Atlantic Monthly and Black Mask. The Lady in the Lake was adapted into a motion picture in 1947, which starred Robert Montgomery as Marlowe.
