Tiger At The Gates: + original programme of the premiere at the Apollo Theatre

Tiger at the Gates is the first English edition, translated by the English poet and playwright Christopher Fry, with a stunning cover design by Loudon Sainthill, who also was the set and costume designer of the Play. The book also includes the original theater programme of the premiere in 1955 at the Apollo Theatre in London, which was directed by Harold Clurman.

Jean Giraudoux wrote the play La guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu [The Trojan War Will Not Take Place, which was retitled to Tiger at the Gates by Christopher Fry] between autumn of 1934 and June 1935, at dawn of the Second World War. Giraudoux draws a parallel between the situation in Europe in the 1930s, where everyone saw a new war coming without really preventing it, with the Trojan War in Antiquity.

One war is over, another is imminent, in this dramatic situation places Giraudoux the action of his play. The play takes place in the days prior to the outbreak of the Trojan War and narrates the efforts of the military commander Hector, who tries to prevent the war from breaking out with the help of the Trojan women.

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London: Methuen & Company, 1955. First U.K. edition. 12mo (19x13cm), original black cloth with silver-lettered spine, in illustrated dust jacket. 84pp. Translated by Christopher Fry. Text in English. Unclipped dust jacket with minor foxing and edgewear. Occasional very minor foxing to pages, overall very good plus in very good dust jacket.

London: Apollo Theatre, 1955. 12mo (18,5×15,5cm), staple-bound. 8pp. Text in English. Folded once horizontally, with minor creases. Contents clean and remarkably untoned. Near fine.