Here for your delectation is the SPECTACULAR & RARE—————————GERALDINE BRADSHAW by Calder Willingham Calder Baynard Willingham, Jr. (December 23, 1922 - February 19, 1995) was an American novelist and screenwriter. Before the age of thirty, The New Yorker was already describing Willingham as having “fathered modern black comedy,” his signature a dry, straight-faced humor, made funnier by its concealed comic intent. Willingham's second book begins a semi-autobiographical trilogy of novels about an aspiring writer, Dick Davenport. Geraldine Bradshaw (1950) was set in a Chicago hotel during the War where Dick works as a bell-boy (as Willingham had), lusting after a new elevator girl. Its sexual explicitness divided critics who felt its subject beneath his gifts but it sold well and has maintained a cultish following among writers; for example, William Styron reported visiting William Faulkner and noticing it prominently placed on his desk, and it appears on various published lists of “lost classics.” The 1954 version is definitive. Willingham explains how the pressure of End As A Man’s success led him to filling out the follow-up book with obscure references to the next two in the trilogy. “Success is always dangerous, and early success is deadly. “What I went through writing my second book shouldn't happen to a dog." NOT TO BE MISSED!!! A FABULOUS COLLECTIBLE!!! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!! This is the softcover stated DELL FIRST EDITION from JULY 1954. Both the cover (no dj) and the book are in excellent condition. There are no rips, tears, markings, etc.—-and the pages and binding are tight (see photo). ** All books listed as FIRST EDITIONS are stated by the publisher in words or number lines—or—only stated editions that include only the publisher and publication date. Check my feedback to see that I sell exactly as I describe. So bid now for this magnificent, impossible-to-find LITERARY COLLECTIBLE.