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Canterbury : H. J. Goulden, 1938. Second edition. Signed by Christopher Hassall on the title-page. A blank verse play featuring Herod, Melchior, Balthazar, Kaspar – and the geographer Strabo – and here presented in the acting edition published for sale at performances of the play in the cathedral as part of the Canterbury Festival. Originally published by Heinemann the previous year.
Crown 8vo (19cm). [vi],(58)pp. Original grey linen wrappers, printed in blue; wrappers lightly tanned and a little spotted, but otherwise a very good copy.

£20

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London : Hamish Hamilton, (1964). First edition. One of the most sensational stage debuts in British theatre history, originally produced at the New Arts Theatre in May 1964, with Madge Ryan, Dudley Suton and Peter Vaughan – Terence Rattigan thought it the best first play he had ever seen.
Crown 8vo (20cm). (x),84,[ii]pp. Original green boards, blocked and lettered in silver; hint of spotting to the endpapers, but a very good, bright and sound copy in the photographic dust-jacket – the jacket with a nick and a small patch of pink discolouration to the lower panel, but also very good.

SOLD

London : David Nutt, 1910. First edition. The first publication of three Peacock plays discovered among the manuscripts acquired by the British Museum in 1903 – “The Dilettanti”, “The Circle of Loda” and “The Three Doctors”. Edited and introduced by Peacock’s biographer, Arthur Button Young (1877-1960).
Pott 4to (16cm). [2],(xiv),(158),[ii]pp. Original red cloth, ruled and blocked in blind and lettered in gilt; top edge gilt; lightly rubbed and a little dull; endpapers a little tanned, but a good and partly unopened copy. Contemporary pencilled ownership inscription of H. J. Marshal, with some further pencilled annotation and underlining to the first play, suggestive of it having been used for a production.

£50

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Canterbury : H. J. Goulden, 1939. First edition : one of a relatively small number of copies of the “acting” edition produced for the cast and for sale at the original performances of the play at Canterbury Cathedral. Precedes the regular Gollancz edition, which was itself published in an edition of just 2,000 copies. An interesting play, in which Sayers reworks the Faust theme.
Crown 8vo (19cm). [iv],(64)pp. Original buff wrappers, printed on upper wrapper in blue; some minimal wear and browning, a handful of spots, but a very good copy of a fragile production. Gilbert A31a.

£25

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London : Constable & Co., 1924. First trade edition. Shaw’s well-known play, premiered in New York and first staged in London on the 26th March 1924, with Sybil Thorndike in the title-role – here prefaced by his lengthy and absorbing introduction on the St. Joan legend – fact and fancy; guilt or innocence; voices and visions; her place in literature; the fairness of her trial; credulity, modern and medieval, etc.
Crown 8vo (19cm). lxiv,114,[ii]pp. Original pale green cloth, lettered in gilt; a handful of edge spots; a couple of leaves roughly opened, but overall a very good copy. Loosely inserted are the substantial remains of the original dust-jacket – front and back panels, both flaps, and the lettering portion of the spine.

£50

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London : Faber & Faber, (1960). First edition. Simpson’s finest and best-known play – absurdity, diversions, non-sequiturs, cardless card games, talking weight machines being trained to sing the Hallelujah Chorus, etc. First performed at the Royal Court in December 1959. “I suspect Mr Simpson to be the possessor of the subtlest mind ever devoted by an Englishman to the writing of farce” (Kenneth Tynan).
Post 8vo (21cm). (94),[ii]pp. Original plum cloth, lettered in gilt. A sprinkling of edge spots, but a very good copy in the Angus McBean dust-jacket – just lightly used but also very good.

SOLD

London : Faber & Faber, (1991). First edition : the hardback issue. Stoppard’s radio play, the scenes alternating between the India of 1930 and the England of 1990. Dedicated to Felicity Kendal, who played Flora Crewe in the original BBC Radio 3 broadcast in April 1991.
Post 8vo (21cm). [viii],(86),[ii]pp. Original blue boards, lettered in white; text just faintly tanned, but a very good copy indeed in the Tania Willis dust-jacket – the jacket also very good indeed.

£40

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London : Jonathan Cape, (1962). First edition. Square-bashing with the RAF – the class system examined – and the undermining of a rebel. “A drama of striking power, intensity and conviction” (New York Post).
Post 8vo (21cm). [ii],74,[iv]pp. Original holly green boards, blocked and lettered up spine in silver; top edge red; a very good copy in a lightly worn and slightly creased dust-jacket featuring a scene from the original Royal Court Theatre production. Contemporary (1963) ownership inscription of P. M. Turner on front free endpaper.

£25

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London : Martin Secker & Warburg, 1957. First British edition. Published to coincide with the UK release of the controversial and much-banned Elia Kazan film starring Karl Malden, Carroll Baker and Eli Wallach.
Post 8vo (21cm). 140pp. Plates – stills from the film. Original red boards, lettered down spine in silver; a few faint marks, but a very good copy in the dust-jacket – a touch sunned, very lightly rubbed and just slightly dusty.

£40

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