She Stoops to Conquer or The Mistakes of a Night [VINTAGE 1978] [LEATHERBOUND COLLECTOR'S EDITION]

Goldsmith, Oliver

Published by Easton Press, Norwalk, Connecticut, 1978

About this Item

As new condition full navy blue genuine leather hardcover boards with elaborately decorated 24kt gold front cover, rear cover and spine decorations, all gilt page edges, beige moire fabric endsheets, traditional two-hubbed spine accented with 22 kt gold, matching beige silk ribbon page marker bound into the volume, and archival paper and pages sewn into the binding (not glued). Includes Publisher's Preface and Introduction. Illustrated with classic drawings by T.M. Cleland and a portrait frontispiece of Oliver Goldsmith from a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds. ".She Stoops to Conquer verges on the anomalous - a full evening's worth of good clean fun. It chiefly owes its vivacity.to the farce idea.of having two young men directed to a private house - the very house they have been invited to visit - under the impression that it is an inn. The original title and surviving subtitle of the play, "The Mistakes of a Night," suggests the quick, cumulative nature of the plotting, and the frank nature of the farcicality. Goldsmith sticks to the possibilities in his hoax, which means that he ingeniously keeps exploring and extracting them. Of just such a hoax had he himself, when very young, been a victim. He, too, seeking an inn, was directed by a practical joker to a private house; he, too, called for servants, and ordered supper, and left directions for breakfast. But with him the "landlord," knowing all the time who he was, kept a straight face and played a landlord's part, not enlightening the boy till he was leaving next morning. The experience could not but stick in his memory, could not - in so genuine a humorist - but grow and spread in his mind. Happily, unlike so many bits of amusing autobiography, this one had far more than anecdotal value; it had real stage value, it could flare with plot and flower into scenes. It had particular stage value by virtue of its comic reversal of values. To mistake a private house for an inn, as against mistaking one private house for another, starts off with confusion on one side that can quickly spread to the other, and that creates not just personal misunderstandings but social "situations" and gaffes. And more during the eighteenth century than today, things that one was expected, was indeed encouraged, to do at an inn were the very things that were out of the question in a private house. At an inn a young gentleman might, indeed, not just give orders and make demands, but put the chatty landlord in his place and avoid his company and conversation. Moreover, it would be a kindness to encourage one's servants to drink as a way of running up a good-sized bill; and, given the situation, it would be automatic to mistake the daughter of the house for a barmaid. The plot thickens, of course, and the fun fattens by having the "landlord" stand aghast at the behaviour of his guests; and the practical joke is kept going by the lubricating propinquity of the practical joker." - excerpt from the Introduction by Louis Kronenberger.

Seller Inventory # 002049

Bibliographic Details

• Title: She Stoops to Conquer or The Mistakes of a Night [VINTAGE 1978] [LEATHERBOUND COLLECTOR'S EDITION]
• Publisher: Easton Press, Norwalk, Connecticut
• Publication Date: 1978
• Language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Cleland, T.M.
• Edition: Collector's Edition
• Condition: As New
• Seller catalogs:
  • LEATHERBOUND VOLUMES