A Yank in Britain: The Lost Memoirs of Charles Urban, Film Pioneer by Charles Urban, Edited by Luke McKernan The Projection Box, Hastings 1999 1st ed with a Preface by C. Bruce Mousell, 95pp., text in acceptable+ condition with very slight browning to page edges & a tiny stain to the bottom edge of pages 89 thru' 93, very minor creasing to the top & bottom corners of some of the pages along with a slight perfumey smell to the pages themselves, slight staining to the page extremities at the very top, side & bottom, edge wear to covers/corners/top & bottom of the spine with creasing + slight yellowing to both covers, bumping/rubbing/staining to the spine edges on front & rear, the spine itself is bumped & rubbed - as are the adjacent corners - the front cover has some marks & scratches, the rear more so, including a small blue biro mark. An acceptable copy. Documentary film producer Charles Urban (1867-1942) was one of the most important and most celebrated figures in the film industry prior to the First World War. This book contains Urban's unfinished memoirs, written shortly before his death in 1942 and wholly unknown to the outside world before now. Written in a frank and engaging style, the memoirs cover Urban's troubled childhood in Cincinnati; his work as a salesman for books, phonographs, and then early motion picture film devices, Edison's Kinetoscope and Vitascope; the invention of his famous Bioscope projector; his journey to Britain to become manager of the Warwick Trading Company, and his experiences in running the premier film company of the period. Entertaining anecdotes abound of such figures as Cecil Hepworth, Joseph Rosenthal, Walter Gibbons, Burton Holmes, A.D. Thomas and William Haggar. Luke McKernan introduces the memoirs and provides an afterword that covers the rest of Urban's remarkable career from the point the memoirs break off. A Yank in Britain is essential reading for anyone interested in the first years of cinema. Will ship by Royal Mail Large Letter 1st Class Signed for, well packaged. (£5.50/unter/burma)