Belli Looks at Life and Law in Japan.
Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, [1960]. Hardcover. Foreword by Errol Flynn. Preface by Toshio Irie. 8vo. Lavender cloth spine with black lettering and tan paper over boards, pictorial dust jacket. 320pp. Frontispiece, illustrations, pictorial endpapers. Near fine/very good. Mild jacket edgewear. Item #45676
Tight and nice first edition of this unusual look at Japan's jurisprudence system by the colorful and controversial defense attorney (1907-96) whose lengthy list of celebrity clients included Jack Ruby, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Mae West, Tony Curtis, Muhammad Ali, The Rolling Stones -- and actor Errol Flynn, who provides the oddball foreword to this book. Belli boldly inscribes and signs the front flyleaf in blue ballpoint "To Luke Carroll / with all good wishes / Melvin Belli / Indianapolis, June 8, 1960." An illustration near page 65 shows a trenchcoat-clad Westerner standing between two Japanese women in front of a pagoda and is captioned "Luke Carroll, of the New York Herald Tribune, poses between two girls dressed as they have been for centuries." (Luke P. Carroll, 1916-82, served as managing editor of "The New York Herald Tribune" and "Chicago's American" before becoming editor of "Chicago Today" in 1968.).
Price: $55.00