Alias the Saint signed and doodled card Leslie Charteris first edition 1931

CHARTERIS, Leslie. Alias the Saint. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1931.
 
Octavo. 316 pp. Original blue cloth lettered in black to spine and upper cover. Without dust-jacket.
A near fine copy, unusually well preserved, the cloth bright and clean with only minor signs of handling. Internally fresh. Loosely inserted at the front is a signed autograph slip in red ink reading "Best wishes - Leslie Charteris" accompanied by the author's characteristic Saint stick-figure doodle.
 
A particularly desirable early Saint title. Alias the Saint collects three adventures of Simon Templar, Charteris's celebrated gentleman-adventurer whose exploits became one of the most successful crime and thriller series of the twentieth century. By the early 1930s the Saint had already become an established popular phenomenon, with Charteris developing the character that would later achieve worldwide fame through film, radio, television and comic-strip adaptations.
 
A near fine early Saint first edition with an attractive signed and doodled autograph accompaniment.