Beschreibung:

Highsmith, PatriciaStrangers on a Train. New York: Harper & Brothers, [1950]
8vo. Publisher's blue cloth, stamped in dark blue; marginal toning, spine sunned with damp stain to foot and adjacent page edges, head toned and a little frayed. Dust jacket; old adhesive tape repairs to reverse of spine, rear and front flap almost detached, cracked and chipped at edges.
First edition, an extraordinary association copy.
The file copy of her literary agent Margot Johnson, with her stamp and "Please return | File copy" to fly, and a presentation copy to the actress and famed aviator Ruth Chatterton, inscribed "To Ruth Chatterton | My first book — | with hopes |of pleasing, | P.H. | Jan 1951". 
The presentation inscription dates to some ten months after the book's publication on March 15, 1950, and five months before the release of Alfred Hitchcock's film adaptation on June 30 1951. In February 1951, Highsmith traveled to Europe and began work on her semi-autobiographical novel The Price of Salt, about a lesbian affair (its relatively happy ending was unprecedented in the genre). The American stage, film and television actress Ruth Chatterton (1892-1961) was also a prominent aviator (and, along with her close friend Amelia Earhart, was one of the few woman aviators of her era) and in her later years Chatterton began a successful writing career as a novelist. Homeward Borne, her first novel, was also published in 1950, and she and Highsmith were both clients of Margot Johnson (as was Gertrude Stein). Highsmith's later agent, Patricia Schartle, described Johnson as "twenty years older than Pat and, 'like Pat,” a “notorious lesbian and a drunk'" (Joan Schenkar, The Talented Miss Highsmith, 2009, p. 191). It is possible that Johnson encouraged her young writer to inscribe this copy to the celebrated actress whom she was now trying to re-establish as a serious writer. It is also plausible that Highsmith suggested inscribing a copy to the famous leading lady and that Johnson obliged the idea. In her diaries, Highsmith recorded a meeting with Johnson on January 25, 1951 in which she posited using the pseudonym Claire Morgan for The Price of Salt. It was perhaps at this meeting that she wrote her inscription to Chatterton before leaving for Europe. That the copy remained with the agency suggests that either Johnson failed to pass on the book to Chatterton, or that Chatterton left it behind. Homeward Borne had evolved out of Chatterton’s own life and career, and "after eleven months, the completed manuscript was handed over to a literary agent, Margot Johnson, who also represented novelist Patricia Highsmith. Johnson, after ripping off the title page bearing the name Ruth Chatterton, delivered it to the top editors of Simon and Schuster: Lee Wright and Max Schuster. She wanted their decision to be based solely on merit. The publisher liked the combustible theme and bought the story. They also requested to meet their new author. When Ruth showed up, she was greeted by two exclamations: 'My God!' by Miss Wright and 'We should have had the newsreels here!' by Schuster. In July 1949, it was announced that Simon and Schuster would promote the Chatterton novel in its 'big spring book'" (Scott O'Brien, Ruth Chatterton: Actress, Aviator, Author, 2013).  "'I can't think of anything more apt to set the imagination stirring, drifting, creating, than the idea–the fact–that anyone you walk past on the pavement anywhere might be a sadist, a compulsive thief, or even a murderer.' In Strangers on a Train, Highsmith's exceptionally accomplished debut novel when the writer was just twenty-nine years old, she explored this very idea... The fact that, more than seventy years after its publication, Strangers on a Train has lost none of its power to disturb is evidence of Highsmith's extraordinary talent" (Paula Hawkins, introduction to the Norton 2021 edition). Presentation copies of Highsmith's stellar debut from an early date are very uncommon.