Stories for Men 1944 -- Recognize this Signature?

I am wondering if this might be a signature of one of the authors. There are 35 of them. Anyone have any ideas? I cannot make out the name other than Eliaril, which sounds like an antidepressant.

 

decarie...../?
lecarie..

 

Looks like Marie to me. Not an author.

 

Seconded. No match to the authors. Who's the editor? Odds are it was a gift giver, but you might get lucky if you match someone on the art/editing team instead.

 

Dec 1941? Hold on to your hat!

Debora

 

First published in 1938, Garden City Publishing Company, New York. An anthology by Charles Grayson.

 

I see "Marie" too. And would have been considered racy in its time. Not the typical gift to a man from a woman.

Debora

 

A lot of those guys were "men's men". Definitely not a girly book then or even now.

 

Definitely Marie

 

I was thinking maybe why the name initially was written poorly is because maybe it was a type of clandestine gift, and so she wrote it nervously.

Studying a lot of film before 1960, I don't see it as such an odd gift however, as women seemed to more openly champion men's virility and masculinity before around the 1970s.

 

It implies a sexual relationship. Not something a respectable girl in the 1940s would do.

Debora

 

Unless it was from a wife, but the inscription doesn't imply that.

 

Could just be good friends. My (non-wife) pal is one of the smartest people I know. She's a real fireball, a feminist and highly opinionated. One Xmas I bought her a Victorian book on how to be a 'real' woman at home, in public and for her husband. So the book discussed above could have been a gift, poking fun at the man.