About this Item
First impression of the first UK edition, published in 1956. Preceded by the first American edition published by New Directions Books, New York in 1955. Tennessee Williams's Pulitzer Prize-winning third play, adapted into the 1958 film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman. With a black & white frontispiece - a sketch of stage setting for the New York production by Jo Mielsiner.
***Very good in blue cloth-covered boards with silver titles to the spine. The cloth is beautifully clean and unmarked, having been protected by the dustwrapper. No significant creases or bumps - just a very slight reading lean to the binding. Spine tight. The top edge of the page block is slightly darkened near the spine, but the other edges are clean. Internally, the book is also very good, with no previous ownership marks, other than a pencil price of 12/6 on the front free endpaper, and a possible date of purchase 'B 3/56' on the rear free endpaper, also in pencil. There is also a contemporary Bowes & Bowes, Cambridge bookseller's label at the bottom of the front pastedown. The interior pages are really clean, with no foxing and no annotations. None of the usual offsetting to the endpapers. No creases or tears.
***In a very good illustrated dustwrapper, which has not been price-clipped, retaining the original publisher's printed price of 12s. 6d. net. The dustwrapper is complete - only slightly rubbed and creased at the extremities, mainly at the top and tail of the spine and top corner tips. No significant creases or tears, and no chips. The back panel of the dustwrapper is heavily browned, unevenly (due to being left in a pile of books in the sunshine no doubt!). The spine of the dustwrapper is also slightly faded, browned and marked, and the red titles on the spine have faded. ***202mm x 135mm. 197 pages.
***'Thomas Lanier Williams III (Mar 26, 1911 - Feb 25, 1983), known by his pen name Tennessee Williams, was an American playwright and screenwriter. Along with contemporaries Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, he is considered among the three foremost playwrights of 20th-century American drama. Writing his first play in 1930, Williams' work did not gain much traction until 1944 with the success of "The Glass Menagerie". His next plays, including "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1947), "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" (1955), "Sweet Bird of Youth" (1959), and "The Night of the Iguana" (1961), were also successful and widely acclaimed'. ***'"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", an adaptation of his 1952 short story "Three Players of a Summer Game", was written between 1953 and 1955. One of Williams's more famous works and his personal favorite, it won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1955. Set in the "plantation home in the Mississippi Delta" of Big Daddy Pollitt, a wealthy cotton tycoon, the play examines the relationships among members of Big Daddy's family, primarily between his son Brick and Maggie "the Cat", Brick's wife. "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" features motifs such as social mores, greed, superficiality, mendacity, decay, sexual desire, repression, and death. The dialogue throughout is often written using nonstandard spelling intended to represent accents of the Southern United States.' (Wiki).
***A first impression of the first UK edition, complete in its original dustwrapper, albeit browned on the back panel. First impression copies of this most famous work are seldom found now in such good condition. ***For all our books, postage is charged at cost, allowing for packaging: any shipping rates indicated on ABE are an average only: we will reduce the P & P charge where appropriate - please contact us for postal rates for heavier books and sets etc.
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