Simon" [Oswell Blakeston; Roger Burford] — The Cat with the Moustache

London, Wishart & Company, 1935 . First edition. Cloth. A signed presentation copy of this very scarce murder mystery by Oswell Blakeston and Roger Burford, starring a moustachioed cat. A very scarce signed first edition, first impression of this thrilling and unusual tale.The third of four mystery novels written under the name "Simon", the pseudonym of two writers working together, Oswell Blakeston - a British writer and artist who also worked in the film industry - and Roger Burford, an English poet, novelist and screenwriter who also wrote crime fiction as Roger East.With the inscription 'To my friend John Gawsworth' to the title page.Inscribed by Blakeston to John Gawsworth, a British writer, poet and compiler of anthologies, both of poetry and of short stories. Blakeston regularly contributed to Gawsworth's anthologies.In the original price unclipped dust wrapper.With faint but extensive former owner's pencil inscriptions to the front free endpaper, and rear flyleaf.A delightfully thrilling and unusual work, advertised by the publisher as about 'a cat 'wearing a moustache like an Italian ice-cream merchant's&apos. The blurb continues: 'When a wealthy lady holds a psychic seance in her country house and invites a police officer on leave-who arrives to find the house completely empty and later discovers her ladyship's manservant dead in a ditch-when the trail leads to a private asylum in charge of a doctor almost as peculiar as his patients, and among the clues are a dwarf, a clairvoyant, a rose that turns into a cigarette&apos.A very scarce signed first edition. In the publisher's original cloth binding, with price unclipped dust wrapper. Back strip a touch age toned, otherwise externally excellent. Lower half of dust wrapper back strip lacking, with small loss of paper to back strip head. Back strip and rear wrap lightly age toned. Front flyleaf tenderly held to head only. Tape repairs to dust wrapper reverse at folds either side of back strip, and to front flyleaf fold. Faint but extensive former owner's pencil inscriptions to the front free endpaper, and rear flyleaf. Internally, firmly bound. Signed to title page. Pages clean and bright, with only the odd spot. Very Good Indeed . Ill.: None. Very Good Indeed/Good Only.