Rare Theater Books

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

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

Iowa City, Iowa:: Emily Martin,, 2016.. Edition of 25. 12 x 10 x 1" dos-a-dos structure. Laid in black Japanese linen cloth clamshell box with titles on the spine. Signed and numbered by the artist on the colophon of both books. Funny Peculiar: 19 pages. Letterpress printed on an SP15 Vandercook proof press using handset type and P22 Blox combined with rubbings, ink washes, and collagraphs. Printed on Domestic Etch paper with gray Pescia endsheets. Drum leaf binding. Funny Ha Ha: 28 pages including 9 leaves in slice structure. Printed on an SP15 Vandercook proof press using handset type combined with relief printing using P22 Blox, collagraphs, and polymer plates from Box Car Press. Printed on white Pescia paper with gray Pescia endsheets. Slice book structure. Emily Martin: "'Funny Ha Ha Funny Peculiar or Funny Peculiar Funny Ha Ha' is the result of my extended study of Shakespeare's comedies. I find the comedies individually to be enjoyable but there is a… 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.

Rare complete set of 70 hand-coloured lithographic portraits of French actors and actresses on the Paris stage, circa 1825. Also known as Collection de portraits des artistes des theatres de Paris.Fine hand-coloured portraits of actors, opera singers and ballet dancers in costume of their famous roles by Alexandre-Marie Colin and Louis Marin-Lavigne, lithographed by F. Noel.Artistes include actors Jean-Baptiste Firmin, Joseph-Isidore Samson, Jenny Vertpre and Mlle. Pauline, opera singers Louis Fereol, Louise Therese Lemonnier, Felicite Pradher, Adolphe Nourrit, Caroline Branchu and Mlle. Grassari, ballet dancers Marie Cheza, Louise Pierson and Zelie Molard, mime artist Charles-Francois Mazurier.Condition: Original marble boards rebound into a portfolio with buckram spine, all 70 plates loose inside. Plates fine and vibrant with excellent handcolouring, a few with repairs. Alexandre-Marie Colin (1798-1875) was a French painter of historical and genre subjects. Louis Stanislas Marin-Lavigne (1797-1860)… Read More

Collection of 277 hand-coloured lithographic portraits of French actors and actresses from the first 4 volumes of this rare series.No title page or prelims, mostly disbound plates loosely inserted within original bindings for Vol. 1 and 2, plate numbers from 1 to 392.Portraits of actors, actresses, dancers and opera singers by Alexandre Lacauchie and Victor Dollet, lithographed by Jules Rigo, Decan, Lebref.Considered to be the most important French artists gallery of the 19th century.Condition: Red leather bindings with fine gilt decoration on spines and boards, water damaged but holding, acting as portfolio for the loose plates. Plates with some damp-staining to lower edge, mostly outside the image, toning and spotting. Most plates disbound but all with vibrant fine hand coloring and gum arabic high lighting. Sold as a collection of plates.Alexandre Lacauchie (1814-1886) was a French painter, engraver and lithographer. Jean Francois Victor Dollet (1815-??) was a French painter, lithographer and printmaker.

Leonard Smithers and Co. London. 1899. FIRST EDITION. Small 4to.(8.4 X 6.3 inches). xvi, 213pp. Original light purple cloth with gilt lettering to the spine and decorative designs by Charles Shannon in gilt to both boards and spine. All edges untrimmed. A small amount of light offsetting to the blank endpapers. Some mottling to the spine and a little bubbling to the cloth on the front board but overall a very good copy. One of 1000 copies, published July 1899. -- Mason 385.

Rare set of 20 parts from the first four series of Leon Sault's fancy-dress or cos-play magazine. Each part (or livraison) with 3 hand-coloured lithographs and 3 lithographs on a particular theme for a total of 118 plates, 58 hand-coloured (missing two plates, Jeune Homme 1:5 and Polonaise 2:5).The designs can be split into allegorical and traditional costumes. Allegorical includes games, the four seasons, the elements (fire, air, snow), winged creatures, fruits and flowers, etc. Traditional includes national costumes of China, Japan, England, Scotland, Scandinavia, Alsace and Brittany as well as French historical costumes from the reign of Henri III, Henri IV, Louis XVI, the French Revolution, Napoleonic, etc.With the popularity of masquerade balls at the court of Empress Eugenie in the Second Empire, demand for unique fancy dress costumes increased. Sault published his fancy dress designs in the magazine L'Art du Travestissements from the 1880s and began selling his unique stage costumes to the… Read More

New York: Columbia Theater Associates of Columbia University, 1950 Original printed tri-fold playbill, with a typed slip for a replacement cast member laid-in; playbill is displayed in a two-sided black glass frame; sale also includes an original ticket stub tipped-in. Presentation copy from Langston Hughes, along with inscriptions from other cast and production members (Muriel Rahn who played Cora Lewis and Jan Meyerowitz who wrote the music). In 1949, Hughes reworked his pet thesis of the "tragic mulatto" from his 1928 play "Mulatto" into an opera, "The Barrier," the music written by modern composer, Jan Meyerowitz. The opera was first produced in the Brander Matthews Hall at Columbia University in 1950 and directed by Milton Smith. The playbill reproduces Hughes? thoughts on his libretto, "It concerns the bitter wall of color between the inhabitants of Albamar Plantation in contemporary Georgia, Colonel Thomas Norwood, his brown housekeeper, Cora Lewis, and their… Read More

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

J. M. Dent & Sons. Ltd. London. 1939. First Edition of the author's first book. 8vo. (8.7 x 5.9 inches). Illustrated with 8 mono plates. Original blue cloth with blind stamped device to upper board, titles to spine gilt, top edge stained blue. With the rare dustjacket. Spine a little dull but a very good copy in the nicked and mildly tanned dustjacket with a single tiny chip at the bottom rear hinge corner. --- Many copies were pulped during the war making this a scarce title. In a letter to a collector written in 1951 Davies reported having no spare copies of this book and that his best guess was that no more than 600 were in existence.

Faulkner was a noble prize winner for his book " Soldier's Pay, Sanctury". etc
The three volumes are in a box cover you can call it dust jacket has signs of age. However, the three books are in almost new condition. The hardcover has a glowiwng aura.
It is a collectors treasure. To be passed on to several generations.

8° (mm 174x118), pp. IV, 44. Frontespizio entro bordura silografica. Legatura coeva in cartoncino ricoperto da carta decorata del '700. Ottimo esemplare.
First Italian translation of Lucianus' Perì Orchéseos, a text whose Latin version had so much success during the Renaissance theoretical debate about literary genres.
Prima edizione in italiano, molto rara, del Perì Orchéseos del filosofo di Samosata, che tanta fortuna ebbe nel corso del Rinascimento (cfr. A.M. Andrisano, La fortuna del De saltatione di Luciano nel Rinascimento: il caso di Rinaldo Corso, "Italianistica: rivista di letteratura italiana", XLVII, 3, 2018, pp. 45-58). Strutturato come dialogo fra Licino (alter ego dell'autore) e il suo contraddittore Cratone, il testo rappresenta un vero e proprio manifesto in difesa dell'arte della danza e della sua figlia legittima, la pantomima. La traduzione commentata è dedicata - da uno pseudonimo, "Crittodunamio", non identificato - al celebre ballerino e coreografo Antonio Muzzarelli… Read More

New York: The Macmillan Co,, 1916. First Edition, First Printing with the words "Set up electrotyped Published February, 1916" printed on the copyright page. "Planned To Be Sung By Efficient Singers Accompanied By a Capable Orchestra." Handsomely bound in contemporary half brown morocco over marbled boards, marbled end papers, top edge gilt, the bookplate of W. Seward Webb, Jr. at front paste down. Very Good Plus, light rubbing at joints and edges, faint foxing at first few pages. . First Edition. Half Morocco. Very Good Plus. 12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" tall.

1781. London: Printed by H. Hughs, 1781.. London: Printed by H. Hughs, 1781. Richard Brinsley Sheridan's Copy of an Important Work on Parliamentary Procedure Hatsell, John [1743-1820]. [Sheridan, Richard Brinsley (1751-1816)]. Precedents of Proceedings in the House of Commons, Under Separate Titles; With Observations. London: Printed by H. Hughs, 1781. xi, 247, [32] pp. Quarto (8" x 10-1/2"). Nineteenth-century calf with later rebacking retaining existing spine, which has gilt fillets and red and black lettering pieces, gilt tooling to board edges, endpapers renewed. Light rubbing and a few minor nicks and scuffs to boards, light gatoring to perimeters of boards, moderate rubbing to board edges, corners bumped and worn. Light browning to interior, light foxing to sections of text, retained armorial bookplate of Richard Brinsley Sheridan to front pastedown, his signature to head of title page. $1,850. * First edition. Holdsworth cites this book several times at length and says it is "[p]erhaps the… Read More