Significant flaws such as remainder marks, previous owner's names, tears in the dust jacket, etc. I sometimes get a little impressionistic ('mildly shelfworn' and the like), because I am, in fact, trying to give an accurate impression of a book's overall appearance. 'Fine' is my highest grade, and a book has to be darn near perfect to earn it if there's any flaw or blemish, from a bumped corner to a finger smudge on the top edge, I'll knock it down to 'Near Fine' in a heartbeat. I use standard book-grading terminology - Good, Very Good, Fine (with various +/- gradations as appropriate) - but without either excessive jargon or obsessive amounts of detail. Nothing automated here - just prompt, personal attention to every order.

Although I occasionally adopt the so-called 'royal We,' in fact ReadInk is just Me - I handle everything from one end of the pipeline to the other: buying, cataloging, customer service, shipping, you name it. So with rare exceptions (a misplaced or mis-shelved book, simultaneous orders on different sites), all books listed for sale are available. Inventory control at ReadInk is very tight, and 'sold' books are promptly removed from my on-line listings.

Greetings! Welcome to ReadInk (pronounced like 'Dead Ink'), now in its 23rd year of putting interesting books into the hands of interested people. The bookplate is that of screenwriter Stewart Stern, whose most notable screen credit, far and away, was for REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE.

Regarding the inscribee's name: it's a little bit scrawly, but it certainly does appear to be 'Sewell,' who was quite likely Sewell Stokes, who penned a subsequent biography of Miss Cooper, 'Without Veils,' published in 1953. (color frontispiece, B&W photographic plates) INSCRIBED and SIGNED on the half-title page: 'Sewell / Love / G / 1965.' An early-mid-career (as it turned out) memoir by the actress who was once thought (per a laid-in newspaper clipping) to have been 'Britain's most beautiful woman.' Her career on stage and screen would eventually span seven decades, the curtain brought down only by her death in 1971.

Gladys cooper