Original Wraps. 16mo. 128 pages. 12 cm. Second edition. 1944 Ilustrated edition, abridged. Abridged 'Quick Reader' of Hecht's novel Count Bruga, about a philandering mountebank appearing in caricature. Count Bruga was originally published in 1926. Ben Hecht (1894–1964) was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist, and novelist; known as "the Shakespeare of Hollywood". He became an active Zionist shortly before the Holocaust began in Germany, and as a result wrote articles and plays about the plight of European Jews, such as We Will Never Die in 1943 and A Flag is Born in 1946. Of his seventy to ninety screenplays, he wrote many anonymously to avoid the British boycott of his work in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The boycott was a response to Hecht's active support of paramilitary action against British forces in Palestine and sabotaging British property there, during which time a supply ship to Palestine was named the S. S. Ben Hecht. Subjects: Count Bruga – Novel – Abridged. Ben Hecht. OCLC lists 3 copies (Newberry, Northwestern, Illinois) . Pages aged, wraps soiled, otherwise clean and fresh. Good condition. (SPEC-40-40)