Your Isadora: The Love Story of Isadora Duncan & Gordon Craig

New York: Random House, 1974. First edition. First edition [stated]. Hardcover. Good in fair dust jacket. Signed by previous owner. Bookplate. DJ has some wear, soiling, ink notation on front flap, and damp marks at edges. Some edge soiling.. vii, [5], 399, [3] p. Occasional footnotes. Illustrations. Bibliography. Notes. From Wikipedia: "Francis Steegmuller (July 3, 1906 October 20, 1994) was an American biographer, translator and fiction writer, who was known chiefly as a Flaubert scholar. Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Steegmuller graduated from Columbia University in 1927. [2] He contributed numerous short stories and articles to The New Yorker and also wrote under the pseudonyms of Byron Steel and David Keith. He won two National Book Awards--one in 1971 for Arts and Letters for his biography of Jean Cocteau (Cocteau: A Biography), [3] another in 1981 for Translation for the first volume of Flaubert's complete letters (The Letters of Gustave Flaubert 1830-1857)[4]--and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal. His first wife was Beatrice Stein, a painter who was a pupil and friend of Jacques Villon; she died in 1961. He married the writer Shirley Hazzard in 1963. His collected papers are held at two universities: at Yale University, the James Jackson Jarves (1818 1888) Papers and the Francis Steegmuller Collection for Jacques Villon; at Columbia University, the Francis Steegmuller Papers 1877 1979." From Wikipedia: "Edward Henry Gordon Craig (16 January 1872 29 July 1966), sometimes known as Gordon Craig, was an English modernist theatre practitioner; he worked as an actor, director and scenic designer, as well as developing an influential body of theoretical writings. Craig was the son of revered actress Dame Ellen Terry. The Gordon Craig theatre, built in Stevenage (the town of his birth), was named in his honour in 1975. Craig asserted that the director was "the true artist of the theatre" and, controversially, suggested viewing actors as no more important than marionettes. He designed and built elaborately symbolic sets; for instance, a set composed of his patented movable screens for the Moscow Art Theatre production of Hamlet. He was also the editor and chief writer for the first international theatre magazine, The Mask. He worked as an actor in the company of Sir Henry Irving, but became more interested in art, learning to carve wood under the tutelage of James Pryde and William Nicholson. His acting career ended in 1897, when he went into theatrical design. Craig's first productions, Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, Handel's Acis and Galatea (both inspired and conducted by his lifelong friend Martin Shaw, who founded the Purcell Operatic Society with him to produce them), and Ibsen's The Vikings at Helgeland, were produced in London. The production of Dido and Aeneas was a considerable success and highly influential in reviving interest in the music of Purcell, then so little known that three copies of The Times review were delivered to the theatre: one addressed to Mr Shaw, one to Mr Craig, and one to Mr Purcell. Craig concentrated on keeping his designs simple, so as to set-off the movements of the actors and of light, and introduced the idea of a "unified stage picture" that covered all the elements of design. After finding little financial success in Britain, Craig set out for Germany in 1904. While there, he wrote one of his most famous works, the essay The Art of the Theatre (later reprinted with the title On the Art of the Theatre). In 1908, Isadora Duncan introduced Craig to Constantin Stanislavski, the founder of the Moscow Art Theatre, who invited him to direct their famous production of Hamlet with the company, which opened in December 1911. After settling in Italy, Craig created a school of theatrical design with support from Lord Howard de Walden. Craig was considered extremely difficult to work with and ultimately refused to direct or design any project over which he did not have complete artistic control. This led to his withdrawal from practical theatre production. His later career is remarkable for how little he achieved after the age of forty, during a long period of over fifty years. He received an OBE and in 1958 was made a Companion of Honour." From Wikipedia: "Angela Isadora Duncan (May 27, 1877.