Search Results: Drama from Sumner & Stillman

1921. A Metabiological Pentateuch. London: Constable and Company, 1921. Original olive green cloth, with dust jacket. First English Edition of one of Shaw's best-known plays, beginning in the Garden of Eden and culminating in A.D. 31,920 ("as far as thought can reach"). Brentano's edition in New York was issued about three weeks earlier. This is a fine copy in an unsoiled, near-fine jacket (a couple of short tears at the end of folds). Laurence A161b.

1901. Newly Revised with several prefaces and an essay on prizefighting. Also The Admirable Bashville. Or, Constancy Unrewarded. Being the novel of Cashel Byron's Profession done into a stage play in three acts and in blank verse. Chicago: Herbert S. Stone and Company, 1901. Original mottled brown cloth with pugilist in white. First Authorized American Edition of Shaw's first book, a prizefighting tale. It was first published in London in 1886, in wrappers, preceded only by a couple of Fabian tracts. Later that year, both Munro and Harper came out with American pirated editions, also in wrappers. This 1901 edition was issued simultaneously with the third English edition, so as to protect the American copyright of the dramatic version, "The Admirable Bashville" (hence its separate title page and copyright notice herein). This copy is in the primary binding, with the publisher's spine imprint all in capitals. This is an unusually clean, fine copy. Laurence A3f.

1955. (New York:) A New Directions Book, (1955). Original light brown cloth lettered in black, with dust jacket. First Edition, first issue, of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play about a dying southern patriarch, Big Daddy Pollitt, and the greed of his would-be heirs -- spiced up by the presence of Maggie the Cat. In March 1955 the play, directed by Elia Kazan, opened starring Barbara Bel Geddes, Ben Gazzara and Burl Ives; three years later came the film (minus the homosexual overtones due to the Hays Code) -- starring Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman and Burl Ives (for which the latter won an Oscar). This copy is of the first state, without mention of The New York Times on the copyright page and without mention of Lucinda Ballard and Joseph Mielzinger on p. xii. The volume is in fine, clean condition, and the $3.00-priced jacket is close to fine as well (just a little rubbing at the top of its spine).

1903. By Hermann Sudermann. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1903. Original dark grey-green paper-covered boards decorated in gilt. First (and only) Edition in English, first (American) issue but with title page dated 1903 rather than 1902. Wharton agreed to translate this play only reluctantly, perhaps drawn by a topic she would later express in her own novels: the plight of a woman who is unhappy in her marriage due to her love for another man. In her Translator's Note, she indicates that she had to exercise some creativity in her task, because "to English and American spectators the long German speeches are a severe strain on the attention"; this is perhaps why Wharton's bibliographer Garrison lists this play as one of Edith Wharton's works -- and in fact, she is sometimes referred to as the co-author of the play. Garrison lists a first Scribner printing published in October-November 1902 (and so dated) -- followed in April 1903 by more copies of this printing issued as the first British… Read More

1915. [Chicago:] The Chicago Little Theatre, 1915. Original pictorial wrappers. First Edition of Rupert Brooke's only play, considered (by Keynes among others) to have consisted of only 200 copies. Before the war young Brooke wrote this play, never expecting it to be performed (a stranger gets lost in rural Lithuania and stops for the night at a hut where there's this farmer's daughter...). However it was in fact produced at The Chicago Little Theatre, and this booklet was published, in October 1915 (six months after Brooke had died of sepsis while part of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force en route to Gallipoli). This experimental art theatre had been founded in 1912 by the British poet Maurice Browne and his wife Ellen Van Volkenburg (the American actress "Nelly Van"); they had been encouraged to do so by Lady Augusta Gregory, and thus tried to model it after Dublin's Abbey Theatre. Forty-four plays would be produced in its tiny fourth-floor quarters (25 of them American premieres). Theodore… Read More

1895. A Melodramatic Farce in Three Acts. In: [two issues of] The Chap-Book Semi-Monthly. Chicago: Stone and Kimball, June 1 & June 15, 1895. Original cream wrappers printed in red and black.. First Trade Appearance (? -- a London appearance came out the same month). The play "Robert Macaire" had been performed in England since 1835, and before that had been performed in France as early as 1823. Stevenson and Henley adapted it in late 1884, and the true first edition of their adaptation was an 1885 London publication "for private circulation only," that requested copies be returned to Henley. On May 27, 1895, S&K filed two copies (as required) at the Library of Congress, and in June it appeared serially both in The New Review (London, published by Heinemann and edited by Henley), and in these "Chap Book"s of Stone & Kimball (these publications appear to have been coordinated between the two publishers, as Heinemann's publication refers to the Library of Congress filing). Soon thereafter, Heinemann… Read More

1877. Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1877. Original terra-cotta cloth decorated in black. First "Collectible" Edition of this play first performed in 1851. We say first "collectible" because there are only four known copies of the original 1851 pamphlet; supposedly a fifth, from which Osgood printed this edition, was destroyed in the Boston fire of 1879. This is a volume in the publisher's "Vest Pocket Series," so named for its diminutive size (a second Dickens "comic burletta" was published in this series the same year -- IS SHE HIS WIFE?). This copy is terra-cotta in color; others are green, without priority. It is a bright, near-fine copy (minor rubbing at the tips, one small mark on the fore-edge of the leaves) -- quite uncommon in this condition. Eckel pp 64-5.

1877. Boston: James R. Osgood and Company, 1877. Original terra-cotta cloth decorated in black. First "Collectible" Edition of this play first performed in 1851. We say first "collectible" because there are only four known copies of the original 1851 pamphlet; supposedly a fifth, from which Osgood printed this edition, was destroyed in the Boston fire of 1879. This is a volume in the publisher's "Vest Pocket Series," so named for its diminutive size (a second Dickens "comic burletta" was published in this series the same year -- IS SHE HIS WIFE?). This copy is terra-cotta in color; others are green, without priority. It is a bright, near-fine copy (very slight rubbing at the very tips of the binding) -- quite uncommon in this condition. Eckel pp 64-5. Although not so identified, this copy came from the collection of the major Dickens collector Martin Nason.

1868. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1868. Original terra-cotta cloth decorated in gilt. First American Edition (published on the same day as the London edition and the Leipzig edition) of these two plays in verse form -- "John Endicott" sited in 1665 Boston and "Giles Corey" in 1692 Salem. This copy is in terra-cotta cloth (one of three colors that were used in addition to several leather bindings), and has the TF pendant device in the supposed second state (with a hollow pendant). As Blanck points out, there were four identical printings dated 1868 (the first almost double the size of the other three combined), though there are at least two instances of type-batter (which this copy does exhibit) that may indicate a copy from late in the first printing or from one of the other three. This is a fine, bright copy. Blanck 12150.

1923. Edited with a Preface by Michael Sadleir. London: Constable & Company, 1923. Original blind-stamped deep red cloth with gilt-decorated spine. First Edition, which consisted of only 500 copies. This is one of only two plays that Trollope ever wrote, as "the genre was uncomfortable to him." He wrote it early in his career, in 1850, at about the same time as his third novel (LA VENDÉE). He later used the germ of THE NOBLE JILT to create "one of his best known novels; to it is due the existence of CAN YOU FORGIVE HER?" (Sadleir, the editor who had this book published from the original manuscript -- and from whom these quotes are drawn -- gives a character-by-character comparison between this play and that novel in his preface.) The binding is an exact facsimile of that used in 1864 for CAN YOU FORGIVE HER?. This is a near-fine copy, without wear but with the spine slightly faded (as usual with this color cloth). Sadleir (Trollope) 70.

1890. [Together, five volumes.] London: Edward Bumpus, 1890 [last one: George Bell & Sons / J. & E. Bumpus, n.d.(1894)]. Original buff-grey wrappers printed in black. These are Nos. ii through vi of the eight "Plays by Robert Bridges," initiated by Edward Bumpus. There were three other plays: NERO [Part I] -- not numbered, and in a different-style wrapper, published in 1885; plus vii THE FEAST OF BACCHUS and viii NERO Part II, these last two published by Bell and Bumpus in 1894 or a little later. All five are in their original buff-grey wrappers, and are in near-fine condition (light foxing on the leaves of the last one). See Colbeck Vol I pp 84-85 (Bridges #s 13, 14, 15, 25 & 25) for these or later printings. Provenance: No. iv with bookplate of William A. Pye on inside cover.

1906. [inscribed by Housman] Or Love in a Dutch Garden. London: A. H. Bullen, 1906. 1 page undated ads. Original mauve cloth. First Edition of this play, largely for mummers. It was issued both in cloth and, less seldom seen, in purple wrappers. According to the last page of text, the play was first performed on 23 December 1904, and was then revived on 24 April 1906 with a different cast; the co-author H. Granville Barker had one of the roles in the first production. There is a frontispiece illustration by Laurence Housman, engraved by his sister Clemence. This is a very good copy, a little darkened and discolored on and near the spine; there is also very slight wear at the spine ends. This copy is inscribed by Housman on the front flyleaf, "To my dear Shad | with love | LH | Christmas 1906." (The "LH" is in the same style as Housman's illustration signature, which is to say with the "H" bordered on two sides by the "L".) "Shad" was Shadwell Boulderson, a minor literary figure of the 'Nineties… Read More

1878. A Comic Opera. In Two Acts. The Music by John Hullah. London: Richard Bentley, 1836 [but ca. 1878]. Original printed self-wrappers. This is the ca. 1878 facsimile reprint of the 1836 first edition of Dickens's first play to be published -- which by 1878 was already a rare item. It is identifiable by the "A Facsimile Reprint" on the title verso, but also by the width of "Richard Bentley," reduced to 2-3/8 inches. Spine deftly restored but this is otherwise a fine copy with unopened leaves. Podeschi (Yale) B39; see Carr (UTexas) B526; Eckel pp 157-158.

1934. London: Macmillan and Co., 1934. Original bright blue-green cloth, with dust jacket. First Edition, which consisted of 3000 copies -- dedicated to Lady Gregory, co-founder of the Abbey Theatre, who had died in 1932. This volume consists of four plays that had appeared onstage at the Abbey Theatre -- "The Words upon the Window-pane," "Fighting the Waves," "The Resurrection" and "The Cat and the Moon." "Fighting the Waves" appears in book form here for the first time; the other three had appeared only as numbers of the Cuala Press, but are here accompanied by long Introductions written by Yeats for this book. The final section of the book is the music, by George Antheil, for "Fighting the Waves." This volume is in fine condition, the leaves still unopened; the dust jacket is just about fine as well (a few stray marks). Wade 175.

1894. Shannon, Charles. London: John Lane at the Sign of the Bodley Head, 1894. 16 pp ads dated March 1894. Original violet cloth decorated in gilt. First Edition of Wilde's satirical play about upper-class social scandal, which consisted of 500 copies (so stated -- half as many copies as the following year's THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST). Wilde wrote this play for production by Herbert Beerbohm Tree (Max's elder brother), of the Theatre Royal in Haymarket, where it opened on 19 April 1893. The sophisticated Lord Illingworth has appointed young Gerald Arbuthnot to be his Secretary, but Gerald's mother, "a woman of no importance," guards a long-concealed secret that prompts her to advise her son to decline the appointment -- but is reluctant to say why... Mason quotes an April 1893 theatrical review: "...the scene between Lord Illingworth and Mrs. Arbuthnot at the end of the second act of this play [pp 76-82] is the most virile and intelligent -- yes, I mean it, the most intelligent -- piece of… Read More