The dust jacket is in rough shape, shows significant wear. Hardcover Book, Good condition but not perfect, Cover has minor nicks and tears, spine shows some creases from use. Ask Questions and request photos if your buying for the cover and not the content. Items are uploaded with their own individual photo, but when Multiple Items are for sale only one representative photo may be shown. Actual Photos are availible upon request. Fast Shipping - Safe and Secure! Additional Details ------------------------------ Product description: ".an old-fashioned novel in the very best sense. It is rich and flavorful, it is compelling and enthralling, a story of a host of real people whose motivations and characteristics grow as the book grows, whose lives are lived as an adventure to be savored, fought for, exploited, and sometimes hated. The book is motion pictures. It is a compassionate story of their growth and of the pioneers in that wonderful, wonderful business. This is not an angry book, or a satirical one. It isn't biased or weighted. It is above all a fascinating and bewitching pageant of a world within a world." TIME Magazine, Monday Dec. 1, 1952: Take a pioneer of the movie industry (nickelodeon vintage) and take him seriously. Shadow him through the eyes of his only son as he makes a ruthless, razzle-dazzle climb from two reels and a crank in a primitive lower Manhattan studio to control of a lavish Hollywood lot. March an army of extras in slow motion through the lives of father & son featuring such types as deep, silent directors (genius division), mean old financiers with moist-eyed granddaughters, fading stars, grasping agents, gossip columnists, and other native life of the celluloid jungle. Dub in a score of documentary asides on 20 pre-talkie years of motion-picture history, focus on the printed page, and the nickering result is The Magic Lantern, Author Robert Carson's 504-page formula for the great Hollywood novel and the Book-of-the-Month Club's choice for December.