Eliot, T. S.

The Cocktail Party. A Comedy.

London: Faber and Faber Ltd, 1950. First Edition, First Printing. Very Good in a Very Good Dust Jacket.

First Edition, First Printing. First issue, with the error at page 29, line 1 "here" for "her."

Green cloth boards stamped in gold on the spine. Bindings tight and square. Text clean, light even toning. Moderate handling wear with fading to top edge. Previous owner's name on front free endpage. The grey dust jacket printed in black and red is price-clipped is in a new clear protective Mylar sleeve has minor chips with tiny loss at spine tips; some age-toning.

8vo; 22.5 by 14.5 cm; 167, [1] 2 leaves, 3 blank leaves. includes music of One-eyed Riley .... as scored from the Author's dictation by Miss Mary Trevelan.

Eliot’s most popular play—a verse drama that begins as drawing-room comedy and deepens into a moral fable. 

At a London party, a mysterious guest (the psychiatrist Sir Henry Harcourt-Reilly) intervenes in the fractured marriage of Edward and Lavinia Chamberlayne and in the fate of Celia Coplestone, recasting polite chatter as a choice between comfortable self-deception and sanctity. Inspired by Euripides’ Alcestis; premiered at the Edinburgh Festival, 1949 (Alec Guinness), ran on Broadway in 1950, and won the Tony Award for Best Play. 

Subjects: Marital disillusionment; Psychiatrist as “mysterious stranger, Verse drama; Modernist theatre; Comedy of manners / morality play.

Item #21130

Price: $65.00