THE BISHOP MURDER CASE; A Philo Vance Story By S.S. Van Dine / Illustrated with Scenes from the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer All Talking Picture

New York: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers, 1929. First Illustrated Photoplay MGM Edition. Cloth. Near Fine/Good Plus. Small 8vo (7 1/2" x 5 1/2"), black cloth with yellow lettering on spine and cover, archival mylar-protected pictorial dust jacket (unclipped) depicting a skeletal hand holding a red bishop chess piece; PHOTOPLAY EDITION illustrated with photographs from the MGM film starring Basil Rathbone and Leile Hyams with B&W frontispiece, 3 full-page stills from the movie & 2 fold-outs: 1 map & 1 layout of a crime scene; 349 pages + [9] Pages of Publisher's Ads for G&D books. Fourth Philo Vance mystery in which the detective solves a crime committed by the "Bishop" by solving clues based upon Mother Goose nursery rhymes. Published in the same year--1929--as the Scribner's edition.<br /> <br /> "S.S. Van Dine was the pseudonym of Willard Huntington Wright (1888 - 1939), a U.S art critic and author of murder mysteries. He created the immensely popular fictional detective Philo Vance, who first appeared in books in the 1920s, then in movies and on the radio."<br /> <br /> Square, tight, bright, clean copy. Light uniform age-toning to paper. Bright dust jacket (unclipped with edge-chipping. Previous owner's presentation on front free endpaper. Photoplay edition illustrated with scenes from the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer feature starring Basil Rathbone and Leile Hyams.