SOMEONE IS BLEEDING - THE DEDICATION COPY, INSCRIBED TO WILLIAM CAMPBELL GAULT

New York: Lion Books, Inc, 1953. First Edition. First published novel by Matheson (1926-2013), an intricate psychosexual tale about a writer who meets and falls in love with a deeply disturbed young woman who, "icon that she is, is surrounded by men whose overwhelming desire in life is to possess her...Someone Is Bleeding is a satisfyingly complex, evocative study of loneliness, dreams, and pathology. Matheson also gives us an exceptionally good look at the Fifties and its snake-pit moral code, its demeaning view of women, its defeated view of men" (Pronzini & Muller, p.367).

Not long after Matheson was discharged from the Army, he moved to Brooklyn with his mother, and decided he couldn't handle the climate, and that he'd be better suited to life in California. "My agent had a writer out there, William Campbell Gault, who met me at the bus station and let me stay at his house for a few days. And he introduced me to other writers, including a group called the Fictioneers. Mostly western, detective, and pulp writers. There was William R. Cox, Les Savage, Bill Gault - a whole pile of them...It was a social club. We would meet for dinner and talk" (Myers, Scott. Blog post: "How They Write A Script: Richard Matheson." Go Into The Story, Jan.28, 2011). The year after this novel was published, Gault would supply the now iconic blurb on the front cover of Matheson's 1954 novel I Am Legend: "This may be the most terrifying novel you will ever read." A distinguished copy of a significant debut. Hubin, p.280. First Printing, a paperback original novel. Octavo (16.25cm); original pictorial card wrappers; purple edge-staining; [6],7-159,[1]pp. The dedication copy, inscribed by Matheson to Edgar Award-winning author William Campbell Gault on the verso of the front wrapper: "To William Gault / Richard Matheson." The printed dedication reads as follows: "To Bill Gault / a guy you can call your friend without crossing your fingers." Some tanning to text edges, light wear to extremities, some faint creases and "spidering" to covers, with (unnecessary) clear tape reinforcement to spine and wrapper edges; just Very Good.