THEATER/THEATRE A-C   •   D-K   •   L-Z

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CelebratingFAMILY VALUES
      . . . Or anyway, Valuing the Family . . .

•  Shaw & Shoemaker 22657. Sewn as issued; lacking wrappers? Dustsoiled, with the last leaf a bit tattered and dog-eared.

An 1892 YALE Dissertation

•  Doctoral thesis analyzing religious drama.

•  Fair in printed paper wrappers, front cover torn nearly in half.   (438)

“Columbia College”Burlesque

•  Amusing collegiate burlesque, satirizing the 1849 inauguration of President Charles King of Columbia College.

•  Good in printed paper wrappers. Front cover with small holes, light foxing to some pages.

Illustrated Explorations of theCountryside

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•  First edition, published in parts, of Dibdin's epistolary account of his travels as a performer in the provinces. Charles Dibdin the elder was a famed but controversial singer, songwriter, and actor who spent a significant amount of time touring the countryside in an attempt to improve both his reputation and his income; in these Observations he includes remarks on the history, natural history, geography, famous natives, trade and manufacture, and customs of the towns and villages he passed through, as well as on various theatrical, literary, and cultural topics near and dear to his heart. He also denounces circulating libraries, watering places, and female boarding schools (in all three cases due to their detrimental effects on morals), as well as quack medicines and incompetent amateur performers.

The two volumes areillustrated with 60 copper-engraved and aquatint plates, one folding map, and one folding chart.  The copper engravings are done in two different styles; one set consists of large renditions of scenery, the other of smaller depictions of people and everyday life — the former done from Dibdin's own paintings, and the latter from drawings by his daughter Anne.

•  Anderson, Book of British Topography, 373; Lowndes 638; NSTC D1044. Not in Abbey, Life in England; not in Ray, The Illustrator & the Book in England. On Dibdin, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online.   Recent quarter caramel morocco and ochre cloth. Light to moderate foxing; mild offsetting around plates; four pages with patch of offsetting from now-absent laid-in item. Plates depicting people all with small area of waterstaining to upper inner portions, just touching corner of platemark without affecting images; scenic plates unaffected. All edges marbled. A solid, handsome, satisfying set.  (26939)

“WOMEN'S THEATER” — San Francisco 1923

•  Program and cast of characters for “The Knave of Hearts” by Louise Saunders and “The Unseen” by Alice Gerstenberg, two plays by women dramatists with all-female casts.

•  Fine.  (19234)

An Artist's View of theEarly Development of American Art

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•  First edition. Dunlap (1766–1839) was “one of the first outstanding figures of the American stage” according to the Oxford Companion to the Theatre; sent to London to study painting with Benjamin West, he found the lure of the theatre more compelling and eventually becamea playwright, manager of New York’s Park Theatre, and vice president of the National Academy of Design. Here reverting to his first “life,” he provides interesting biographical accounts, full of anecdotes and personal observations, of numerous prominent American artists and their works. Vol. I features a facsimile of an autograph bill of sale, for portraits, by John Singleton Copley.

•  On Dunlap, see: Oxford Companion to the Theatre, 211. American Imprints 24237; BAL 5026; Howes D571; Sabin 21303.   Publisher's quarter green diced cloth and tan paper–covered sides, spines with gilt-stamped title; edges and extremities rubbed, corners bumped, spines sunned, sides with spots of staining and discoloration. Front hinges (inside) tender. Ex–social club library: spines with paper shelving labels, front pastedowns with 19th-century bookplates and inked shelving numbers, title-pages and one other in each volume rubber-stamped, no other markings. Some outer corners of vol. II lightly waterstained; a very few instances of small spots of staining.  (27558)

Touting “New Literary Connexions inAMERICA”

•  Collected issues of this monthly “literary journal,” which actually served as a catchall also for general news and very various items of interest—including articles on natural history and voyages or travels; wedding, bankruptcy, and death notices; remarks on pictures, or ontheatrical and musical performances; and assorted free-floating anecdotes and witticisms, as well as original poetry and reviews of contemporary publications. The preface notes that “by means of some new literary connexions in america, we shall possess peculiar advantages in presenting to our Readers, accounts of the most interesting circumstances belonging to the United States”—and it was an American reader, in fact, who owned the present example.

This volume’s oversized, folding frontispiece shows the front facade of the “new East India House now building in Leadenhall Street”; there is also one in-text engraving of Lethington House in East Lothian, residence of the Maitland family.

Provenance: Front pastedown with inked ownership inscription of Joshua Gilpin, a Quaker from Philadelphia who established the first paper mill in Delaware, in 1787.

•  Disbound with front cover, front free endpaper, and frontispiece separated; back cover lost, and signature sewing exposed/going, with many leaves loose. Now contained in a simple, acid-free phase box. Edges untrimmed. Minor offsetting and a few stray marks; mostly clean.

For more MONTHLY MAGAZINE
          volumes,  click here.

Proto–Nunsense?

•  Wrappers indicate publisher to be Samuel French of London; tone is suggested by the fact that one character is called "Sister Opportune." From the "Cumberland's British Theatre" series.

•  Pictoral wrappers, chipped and fragile.

Theatrical/Poetical Works from aGerman Protestant Humanist Polymath

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•  “Ex recentissima ac omnium postrema ipsius auctoris emendatione relicta”: a collection of seven tragedies and two comedies from a Protestant humanist (1547–90) known as an accomplished playwright, mathematician, astronomer, and classicist. Present here and significantly representing Frischlin's breadth of background and reference are “Rebecca,” “Susanna,” “Hildegardis,” “Julius redivivus,” “Priscianus vapulans,” “Helvetiogermani,” “Phasma,” “Venus,” and “Dido.” Also present are a woodcut portrait of the author and five in-text woodcut vignettes (in “Priscianus vapulans”); the last few leaves are printed in black-letter.

Provenance:  Armorial bookplate of the Fenton family, with their motto “Gwell angau na gwarth,” i.e., “Death before Disgrace.” The Fenton in question was most likely Richard (1747–1821), an antiquary known for his substantial library.

•  VD16 F 2908. See Brunet, II, 1401 for 1585 and 1596 eds. On Fenton, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online.   Contemporary vellum, covers framed in blind, spine with early hand-inked title; vellum moderately dust-soiled, joints repaired, upper corners and edges rubbed. Early pages with inked underlining; a few subsequent instances of pencilled bracketing. Scattered light staining, pages mostly clean.  (27755)

ThePLAYS Complete & in a Signed Binding

•  27 plays by the Nobel laureate and author of the Forsyte Saga.

Signed binding: Contemporary half tan morocco with marbled paper–covered sides, spine with raised bands each accented above and below with single gilt rule and single black rule; gilt-stamped title, spine compartments framed in gilt with gilt dots in each corner and each with gilt center device. Front free endpaper stamped “Bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe.” Top edge gilt; silk ribbon place marker.

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

•  Binding as above, spine slightly sunned, corners and extremities showing minor rubbing. Front pastedown with private collector’s armorial bookplate. Pages clean.

In Italian & English — New York

•  Early American printing of this historical drama, in which Elizabeth is presented as a willful woman prone to conflicting impulses. The text is given in both Italian and English (in a translation by Thomas Williams), with a cast list.

•  Fair in printed paper wrappers, front cover lacking, sewing starting to go.

Presentation Copy 

•  No. CCCXVII. French's Minor Drama. Original printed wrappers. Inscribed on front cover "Presented by the author to Library Association January 23 - 1873". Author's embossed stamp inside, rubber-stamp ("Newark Library Association") on front.

•  Spine and covers chipped, rear cover separating, lower corner of front cover dog-eared. Title-page chipped at one corner.

Classically CORRECT . . .

•  Jonson produced this play, focused on a conspiracy organized by Catiline to overthrow the existing Roman government and assassinate Cicero, as an attempt to bring "scholarly accuracy" to the English theater (CCHEL, 299), and he presents the events of the year 63 B.C. in as thorough a fashion as possible. The results of his effort are interesting for a variety of reasons, though the play, first printed and acted in 1611, has never been one of his most popular.

•  Wing J1006; Greg, I, 296 (h). Narrow green cloth spine; black leather label with gilt rule and stamping on front cover. Slight foxing, and pinhole worming through top corner of outer margins; a small hole on p. 241/242 affects text just barely, and there is a clean two-inch tear on p. 245.

(Jonson, Benjamin). We can offer several other individual plays by Jonson, all extracted from the same edition as the above and similarly bound. Among them are Catiline his conspiracy; Poetaster: or, his arraignment . . .

Priced from $175.00 to $255.00:
Click here to view a list of these items.

Characters Noble ButDENSE      

•  Kelly, the son of an Irish tavern-keeper, launched his London literary career by contributing to newspapers while working as a copying-clerk to an attorney. After marrying a needlewoman, he moved to Middle Temple Lane, where the DNB says "he laboured untiringly as literary hack." Next he gained fame as a theater critic, publishing two books criticizing the actors of the Drury Lane Theatre and of Covent Garden; Garrick, whom Kelly had prudently praised in the first book, then encouraged Kelly to write plays himself.

Kelly’s first production, this play enjoyed great success both onstage and in print. Garrick wrote the prologue and epilogue to this rather provoking tale of an entire circle of friends attempting to get themselves successfully paired off, most of them foolishly determined to marry people they don’t love for the sake of nobly sparing everyone else’s feelings, and all of them completely misunderstanding the true natures of the various relationships.

This is almost certainly the first edition; of the four printings in 1768, one identifies itself as the fourth edition and the other two both seem to have been labelled "A new edition."

•  NCBEL 2, 845. On Kelly, see: DNB. Recent wrappers. Lacking half-title. Three pages including title stamped by now-defunct library. Pages with previous sewing-holes and some light foxing towards the end.

“I’ll Mark This Down for anIncident in My Comedy”

Kelly, Hugh.

•  Speaking of himself, the author says "Tho’ he has chosen a title used by Moliere, he has neither borrowed a single circumstance from that great poet, nor, to the best of his recollection, from any other writer"—but certain situations may nevertheless seem somewhat familiar. The elderly soldier woos a young maid who thinks he is pressing the suit of his handsome young son, and the straying husband’s tête-à-tête at the masked ball turns out to be with his own disguised wife. Kelly tweaks these theatrical conventions by adding a saintly wife who smiles and forgives her husband’s capture in the most compromising of circumstances, then assures her best friend that she’d far rather he had twenty distracting dalliances than one serious—plus a spinster authoress, who throughout the play jots down what she considers the best conversational lines and most passionate utterances for use in her own plays!

With an etched frontispiece of Act 4, Scene 4.

•  ESTC T002464; NCBEL 1, 845. In recent wrappers. On Kelly, see: DNB as above. With sewing holes and five pages (including title) stamped by now-defunct library; some pages dog-eared. Frontispiece with a few small discolorations.

For more KELLY, review our
unillustrated PDF list of 200+ separately published
18TH- & 19TH-CENTURY BRITISH PLAYS
  — click here.

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