Pursuit of Gentlemen [with unproduced typescript play]

New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., (1951).

Price: $2,000.00

Hardcover. First edition. Illustrated by Jack Long. Near fine with slight soiling to the boards and some edgewear in a very good dustwrapper with some rubbing, chips, and tears. Inscribed by the author. Laid in are eleven 8½" x 11" photocopied pages of a typed treatment for staging the book as a play, with handwritten corrections. All pages have been folded and are very good with shallow chips and tears.

Kathryn Cochran Cravens, 1898–1991, a radio personality, actress, and writer from Texas was the first female news commentator to be broadcast coast-to-coast. *Pursuit of Gentlemen*, her only novel, was published in 1951; the manuscript won first prize from the National League of American Penwomen in 1948. The novel is a fictionalized version of her adventures as a trailblazing woman with humble Texas beginnings finding her way into New York society.

As an actress she started her career playing small parts for Fox Films in Hollywood. The following decade would include work in silent films and eventually radio, where she found her niche. By 1930 she was given her own news program in St. Louis, "News Through a Woman's Eyes." CBS eventually picked up the show and Cravens moved to New York. Additionally she wrote columns for *Cosmopolitan*, *The New York Times*, and *The Christian Science Monitor* before focusing on the war effort. In 1945 she became the first woman wartime correspondent. She was later acknowledged for her efforts with a special citation presented by the United States Army.

Although apparently never performed, Cravens typed up stage directions for the first two acts of *Pursuit of Gentlemen*, present here. This would be her last published work as Cravens retired to her family home in Burkett, Texas in 1952 after making it into *Who's Who in America*.


Item #367187

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Item #367187 Pursuit of Gentlemen [with unproduced typescript play]. Kathryn CRAVENS.
Pursuit of Gentlemen [with unproduced typescript play]
Pursuit of Gentlemen [with unproduced typescript play]
Pursuit of Gentlemen [with unproduced typescript play]
Pursuit of Gentlemen [with unproduced typescript play]