Poetry and Plays and Music Scores

Sarah Bernhardt – William Embodden

A first US edition published by Macmillan, New York in 1975.

Quarto, 176 pages, and a very good copy of a excellent work on Bernhardt, not the least for the introduction by Sir John Gielgud.

Nicely illustrated throughout from period photographs. Includes our image of Sarah as Frou-Frou.

Accompanied by a useful appendix listing the plays in which she acted chronologically and a healthy bibliography.

Sarah Bernhardt – well-presented and exceptional images.

$40.00

Updating cart…

The Lure of the Limerick – William S Baring-Gould.

Published by Rupert Hart-Davis, London in 1969. Squat quarto, 143 pages, very good condition.

If you have made it through life without a few limericks “up your sleeve”, then you are missing out. Limericks by nature are often a bit rude … well crude – but that’s the point.

Imagine that ghastly dinner party, or better still a business lunch or annual get-together. It’s all a bit tired and predictable and, maybe fortified out it pops ….

“There was a young student of Johns

Who wanted to bugger the swans.

But the loyal hall porter

Said, “Sir, take my daughter.

Them birds are reserved for the dons”

If there is complete silence – regard that as success!

Rest assured some contain Australia – just not as good.

Limericks – become an expert overnight.

$30.00

Updating cart…

The Faerie Queene – Edmund Spenser – Full Calf 1860′s Copy

Spenser’s Faerie Queene disposed in twelve bookes fashioning XII moral virtues to which is added his Epithalamion a new edition, with a glossary; illustrated by Edward Corbould.

Published by George Routledge & Sons, no date but 1860’s. Octavo, 820 pages.

A beautiful book bound in full polished rich green calf with six compartments to the spine with bright gilt devices and red leather title label lavish marbled endpaper continuing to page edges, gilt lines to boards … a few marks but still a superb copy.

Spenser one of the greatest English poets; and here his longest work originally written in 1590. Allegorical, with references to Queen Elizabeth I. the illustrator Edward Corbould (1815-1905) was active in the Victorian era.

Deliciously bound Faerie Queene

$140.00

Updating cart…

Garden District – Two Plays .. Something Unspoken and Suddenly Last Summer – Tennessee Williams – First Edition 1959

A first UK edition published by Secker and Warburg, London in 1959.

Octavo, 72 pages, very good condition.

Two plays … a short one Something Unspoken a type often referred to as a curtain-raiser; and the longer Suddenly Last Summer.

Both had just been performed in England at the London Arts Theatre to much acclaim

Suddenly Last Summer is a gothic psychological drama. It was adapted and made into a brilliant movie with Katherine Hepburn, Montgomery Cliff and Elizabeth Taylor …. Elizabeth Taylor stole the show …. it is a must watch movie … particularly if you cannot find the play in progress.

Entertaining and still challenging from T.W. …

$30.00

Updating cart…

The True-born English-man: A Satyr – Daniel Defoe – This Copy Published in 1716

A rare item by Daniel Defoe. The scarce “enlarged” edition printed and sold by James Roberts, London in 1716.

Pocket sized 12 mo, 12, 26 pages, bound in contemporary calf backed boards, some age and wear but solid and rare in this original state.

First edition thus. After the accession of Hanover Defoe added a new passage of 49 lines satirising the English temper. It was hastily published and contains a number of hasty error which ironically confirm its pedigree

A True-born English-man, satirical poem of length about xenophobia … a few could learn from it today. Dutch born William of Orange has become King of England, and there was much tittle tattle about his lack of English-ness. Defoe, forever a wit, wrote this is support of old William of Orange, ridiculing the notion of English racial purity. Well the evidence is there.

Defoe … much quoted from his opening rant

“that het’rogeneous thing, an Englishman:
In eager rapes, and furious lust begot
Betwixt a painted Britain and a Scot
Whose gend’ring off-spring quickly learn’d to bow,
And yoke their heifers to the Roman plough:
From whence a mongrel half-bred race there came,
With neither name, nor nation, speech nor fame.
In whose hot veins new mixtures quickly ran,
Infused betwixt a Saxon and a Dane
While their rank daughters, to their parents just,
Receiv’d all nations with promiscuous lust.
This nauseous brood directly did contain
The well-extracted blood of Englishmen.”

Daniel Defoe and his True-born a delicious antiquarian rarity … over three hundred year old!

$280.00

Updating cart…

The Long Voyage Home [Nautical Plays] – Eugene O’Neil

Great Modern Library edition published in 1946 in very good condition.

Seven short plays by Eugene O’Neil. Includes … The Moon of the Caribees; Bound East for Cardiff; Isle; Where the Cross is Made; The Rope and our favourite “In the Zone” and of course the title play The Long Voyage Home.

Nautical Plays for Salty Dogs

$30.00

Updating cart…

Sarah Bernhardt – William Embodden

The Lure of the Limerick – William S Baring-Gould.

The Faerie Queene – Edmund Spenser – Full Calf 1860′s Copy

Garden District – Two Plays .. Something Unspoken and Suddenly Last Summer – Tennessee Williams – First Edition 1959

The True-born English-man: A Satyr – Daniel Defoe – This Copy Published in 1716

The Long Voyage Home [Nautical Plays] – Eugene O’Neil

Product Categories