Rare Theater Books

New York, Viking, 1986, hardcover, First Edition, First Printing, Signed and Inscribed by the Author on the front endpaper, Near Fine in Near Fine dustjacket. Straight tight and clean with no markings, slight corner bumps. Dustjacket unclipped with original price, slight corner and edge bumps, two tiny spots to front panel, light rubs to rear panel, in new Brodart sleeve. Essays and opinions on various, wide-ranging subjects, from the actor's craft to old-time pool halls, and a lovely tribute to his favorite bitches. ISBN 9780670811403

Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc. 1970. First edition / First printing. Gray cloth. Very fine in very close to fine dust jacket. A superior copy of this scarce title.

San Francisco:: Pettingell Book Bindery / Art Hazelwood,, 2011.. Edition of 20. 12 x 13" fold-out boxed opera set with screenprinted covers. Includes miniature stage set, seven two-dimensional puppets that fit into groves in the stage floor, six engravings that act as changeable background drops, and a booklet with libretto. Engravings printed on Hahnemühle Copperplate paper and Lana Gravure paper. Screenprints printed on Hahnemühle Bugra paper and Arches Watercolor Hot Press paper. Booklet (8.5 x 5"; 24 pages) printed on Mohawk Superfine and set in Verlag, Chronicle Text, and Lithos Pro. Signed by Hazelwood. Art Hazelwood: "Tora Bora is a reverse engineered opera. The Seventeenth Century etcher Jacques Callot’s illustrations of scenes from operas inspired the thought—what if all that remained of an opera were etchings from a few scenes? How, for example, would the Magic Flute be reconstructed from that? With this in mind Art Hazelwood and Klaus-Ullrich… Read More

London: Secker & Warburg, 1973 First printing of the first U.K. edition. Publisher's black cloth and dust jacket with £2.50 price, Octavo, 163pp.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr.'s copy (Who wrote the forward), with his armorial bookplate on front-free-endpaper (also, loosely laid-in is an auction card for The Estate of Douglass Fairbanks, Jr.

Signed and inscribed by Harold French to Douglas Fairbanks Jr., who wrote the Foreword.

Light bump to upper board edge, else book in fine condition; dust jacket with mild edge wear, light tanning to spine, and a bit of age-toning to top edge of flaps, else dust jacket in fine condition.

Unique, signed-association copy , scarce thus.

Guildford, England:: Circle Press,, 1979.. First Limited. 40 x 32 Designed and produced by Ronald King with notes & introductory essay 'The Elusive Absolute' by Keith Please. Limited edition of three hundred books with five H.C. copies, forty Artist's Proofs and ten marked Circle Press held for presentation; all the books SIGNED by the artist. Book designed & printed by the artist at Circle Press. Text in 10 pt. Baskerville. The paper is pure rag-made 250 gsm. Velin Cuve Rives Blanc, and the box designed and made at Dorset Bookbinding by Paul Haskell. A beautifully rendered edition of Shakespeare's play with King's own marginal notes and lustrious contemporary illustrations. Cooking the Books: "Antony & Cleopatra is a departure from King's other illustrated classic texts. He himself likens it to a contemporary film script in that it flits from place to place, the scene rapidly changing from Rome to Egypt and back again. Something of this hectic quality… Read More

New York : Henry Holt and Company, 1945 First edition, stated first printing. Signed and inscribed by Robert Frost to Jerome Cantor, on the front free endpaper, with a program for the Bread Loaf Little Theatre production for "An Evening of Robert Frost," including a performance of "The Hill Wife" and "A Masque of Reason," with Jerome Cantor as Satan. Faint moister marks to front panel, light age-toning to endpapers and page margins, and a short closed tear to back end-paper, else book in fine condition; dust jacket with mild chipping to spine ends, faint age-toning to back cover margins, and light shelf wear, else fine.

London: William Pickering, 1825. Hardcover. Very Good. 3.5" x 2" Miniature edition of t he Plays of Shakespeare in 9 volumes, in custom slipcase. Vol 1: [vi] 306 p.p.; vol 2: 279 p.p; vol 3: 294 p.p; vol 4: 326 p.p; vol. 5: 321 p.p.; vol. 6: 348 p.p.; vol. 7: 320 p.p.; vol. 8: 315 p.p.; vol. 9: 279 p.p. [liv]. Full green morocco bindings, with some wear and scuffs. Spine rebacked with new black leather with original spine laid down on volume 1 only. Gilt titles on spines and gilt ruling on inner edges. 38 B&W plates, incl. frontis. engraved by Augustus Fox, from a picture painted by T. Stothard R.A. from the rare print by Droeshout. Browning to pages and illustrations, sporadic light foxing throughout. Water staining to volume 6, not affecting text. William Pickering was an English publisher notable for introducing cloth binding to British publishing. Dedicated to Earl R.H. George John Spencer, the 2nd Lord Spencer, noted for his interest in literature, particularly early examples of printing.… Read More

E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc, 1937. Hardcover. Very Good. 0x0x0. Collectible first edition, first printing of legendary American theater actor, Pulitzer Prize winning producer, filmmaker and renowned boxing promoter William A. Brady's autobiography, Showman, My Life Story. "FIRST EDITION" so stated on copyright page. Signed and inscribed on front free endpaper verso by Brady to colleague and friend (and legend in her own right) Frances Marion thus: "To an old associate | Frances Marion | a "good fellow" if there | ever was one. With the | kindest regards of | William A. Brady | N.Y.C. St. Patrick's Day | 1940." Signature unconditionally guaranteed to pass any COA examination. Marion's personal copy. Bound in 1/2 yellow linen over blue linen with black lettering to front and spine panels. Dust jacket with $3.00 price intact and photo of Brady to back panel. Illustrated with numerous historical photos, including a photo frontis. 278 pp. 8 7/8" x 6… Read More

Title page, 20 hand-coloured engraved plates with corresponding pages of explanatory text. Twenty fine hand-coloured engraved portraits by R. Cooper of famous contemporary actors and actresses after paintings by Harlow, Sharp, Clint, De Wilde, Waldeck, and others.Actors include Sarah Siddons as Lady Macbeth, Edmund Kean as Richard III, ballerinas Mlle. Lisa Noblet and Mlle. Felicite Hullin, ballet dancer Etienne Le Blond, opera singer Giuseppe de Begnis, Samuel Simmonds as Baron Munchausen, Henry Gattie and Mme. Maria Theresa Bland in the farce Monsieur Tonson, Sarah Booth, Frances Copeland, Charles Young, etc.Daniel Terry (1780-1829) was an English actor and friend of Sir Walter Scott, many of whose novels he adapted for the stage.Condition: Half honey-coloured leather binding with five raised bands, gilt leather title label, marbled boards. Interior clean and bright with fine hand-colouring, slight discoloration to title page.

New York: Horace Liveright, Inc., 1931. Hardcover in slipcase. Good/No Jacket, as issued. SIGNED Presentation Copy in Slipcase, #524 of the special limited edition (501-550 were for presentation). Signed by O'Neill in black ink. Though not indicated, this volume is from the library of T. R. Smith, chief editor and adviser at Liveright throughout its heyday in the 1920s and responsible for publishing some of O'Neill's works (including an early volume of one-act plays and Strange Interlude in 1928). Trilogy of plays containing Homecoming, The Hunted, and The Haunted. Includes Working Notes and Extracts from a fragmentary work diary, facsimile pages inserted in rear pocket. Stained & spotted white vellum with beveled edges, gilt-stamping and black spine label. Scarce slipcase in fair condition with fragile & cracked edges and old tape repairs. Binding solid and untrimmed/uncut, but covers are rather spotted & darkened. O'Neill was a Puitzer and Nobel Prize winning American playwright, considered one of… Read More

Milano: Ricordi, 1830. First Edition — Primera edición. 232x325mm. (9¼x12¾").. Milano & Firenze, Gio. Ricordi, c.1830. Folio oblongo (232 x 325)mm. (1) hoja de título, (1) h. de índice y personajes, 266 pp., 5 láminas grabadas y coloreadas a mano en la época representando los escenarios de la obra sobre dibujos de Sanquirico. Encuadernación en pleno marroquén de época color azul marino, hilo y rueda dorada enmarcando los planos, lomera cuajada de adornos dorados, rueda dorada en los contracantos, cabeza y cortes también dorados. Primera edición de gran rareza extra ilustrado con láminas de Sanquirico. Il Talismano, con libreto de Gaetano Barniere sobre texto de Walter Scott, fue la primera representación en el Teatro alla Scala de Milán, representada el 10 de junio de 1829. El libro, todo grabado en plancha, está además ilustrado con 5 magníficas láminas grabadas en litografía y coloreadas a mano inventadas y dibujadas por Alessandro Sanquirico representando escenarios para la… Read More

4° (mm 200x135); cc. (8), segnate A-B4. Al frontespizio, silografia dell'Angelo al di sopra di un'altra silografia scenico-narrativa (mm 90x115); alla carta B1r, silografia a tre quarti di pagina (mm 73x102); al verso dell'ultima carta, la medesima silografia del frontespizio. Elegante legatura tardo-ottocentesca - verosimilmente inglese - in marocchino marrone con filettatura in oro ai piatti e titolo in oro lungo il dorso. Bell'esemplare.
Provenienza: Fairfax-Murray ? (cfr. Sander, 6220 [nota]); Libreria Il Polifilo, Milano (Cat. XIII [1947], n. 69).
Rarissima edizione fiorentina, splendidamente illustrata da tre silografie scenico-narrative. Cioni, 175-76; De Batines, 35-36; Sander, 6220 [nota]; Kristeller, 185.
Quella del frontespizio, reimpressa al verso dell'ultima carta, riprende il legno della prima edizione [Firenze, fine del sec. XV- inizi del sec. XVI, cfr. Sander, 6215, tav. 646, De Marinis, 166, tav. CXCVIII). Il secondo legno, che rappresenta un giovane uomo inginocchiato davanti a un… Read More

Complete set of 18 volumes of the first edition of John Bell's British Theatre with the de Wilde portraits."In 1793, the year of his first bancrupty, the beleaguered Bell bound up and sold the first 90 numbers of the new de Wilde-illustrated edition without general volume title pages." (Kalman A. Burnim and Philip H. Highfill Jr.). This set conforms to that description: volumes 1 to 18, each with five plays complete with all 90 title pages and theatrical portraits by Samuel de Wilde, engraved by John Chapman, lacking volume titles. Portraits include actors, actresses and opera singers of the Georgian stage including Sarah Siddons, John Philip Kemble, Robert Baddeley, Isabella Mattocks, Charles Lee Lewes, Harriet Pye Esten, Elizabeth Billington, Anna Maria Crouch, Anna Selina Storace, Joseph George Holman, Elizabeth Younge (later Pope),etc.Vol. 1: Comus by John Milton, Maid of the Mill, School for Fathers and Love in a Village by Isaac Bickerstaff, The Beggar's Opera by John Gay. Vol. 2: Venice… Read More

Boston, Massachusetts:: Janet Zweig, Photographic Resource Center,, 1985.. 20 unnumbered pages. Four color offset printing on Mohawk Superfine paper. Quarter-bound with illustrated paper over boards and cloth spine. Leaves are folded and glued at the spine to allow for a continuous image. Texts are excerpted from: Dr. Lawrence Kohlberg (dilemmas), The Moral Development of the Child by Jean Piaget (stories), In a Different Voice by Carol Gilligan (responses at intermission)". Janet Zweig: "This book combines the classic Punch and Judy text and overlays it illusionalistically with three layers of imagery: First, there are slips of paper with excerpts from studies of morality and gender by Lawrence Kohlberg, Jean Piaget, and Carol Gilligan. Next there are drawings in crayon, ink and other substances as if someone was marking directly on the book, and finally there is an overlay of a shadow play that falls on each entire spread.."

1672 RARE 1ed Love in a Wood English Restoration Theater Wycherley St James Park

William Wycherley was 17th-century English playwright whose plays were popular throughout England during his lifetime. In fact, many of his works were performed at the Theatre Royal including "Love in A Wood". This play, his first to be published and performed, was dedicated to the Duchess of Cleveland, Barbra Palmer, one of the many mistresses of Charles II of England.

This 1672 first edition of Wycherley's first work is considerably rare and valuable! A fine work of early British literature and theater!

Item number: #22626
Price: $1500

WYCHERLEY, William

Love in a wood, or, St. James's park : a comedy

London: Printed by J.M. for H. Herringman, 1672. First edition.

Details:
· Collation: Complete with all pages
o [8], 95, [1]
· Language: English
· Binding: Leather; tight and secure
· Size: ~8.75in X 6.5in (22cm x 16cm)
· Very rare and desirable

Our Guarantee:
Very Fast.… Read More