CONVERSATION AT MIDNIGHT

ST. VINCENT MILLAY, EDNA

Published by Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York and London, 1937

About this Item

260 x 165 mm. (10 1/4 x 6 1/2"). 5 p.l., xi-xx, [2], 177, [1] pp. Original cream buckram over blue holland boards, printed paper label on spine, edges untrimmed and ALMOST ENTIRELY UNOPENED. Housed in the original dark blue paper slipcase with printed paper label on front (blue paper unevenly sunned, but in very good condition). Yost 54. The faintest hint of rubbing to boards (apparently from slipcase entry and exit), bottom corners vaguely bumped, a small stain on two pages, but all of these imperfections extremely trivial, and the copy obviously never read (because how could it have been?). This is an especially attractive copy of Edna St. Vincent Millay's final and longest play (of six), an experimental and philosophical drama featuring meditations on society, love, and human purpose at a time when war and peace were looming and portentous issues. Speaking generally of her career and influence, ANB tells us that Millay (1892-1950), a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, dramatist, and feminist activist, "is the poetic voice of eternal youth, feminine revolt and liberation, and potent sensitivity and suggestiveness. Her best and most representative themes are bittersweet love, sorrow, the inevitability of change, resignation, death, and ever-abiding nature." Many of these are addressed in "Conversation at Midnight," a wide-ranging dialogue in blank verse between seven people, including a priest, a stockbroker, a Communist poet, a writer of short stories, a painter, an advertising professional, and the host. This work very nearly never came to be: Millay's manuscript was entirely destroyed in a hotel fire in the spring of 1936. She reconstructed it from memory, despite a further setback due to a serious car accident that summer, and it was eventually published in this form the following year. Editions, including our first, of "Conversation at Midnight" are easy enough to find, but copies like the present--with the well-preserved slipcase and unread because unopened--are decidedly rare. FIRST EDITION. No. 476 OF 579 COPIES on Worthy Charta Paper (and 36 on Japan Vellum) SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR on the limitation page.

Seller Inventory # ST20338-108

Bibliographic Details

• Title: CONVERSATION AT MIDNIGHT
• Publisher: Harper & Brothers Publishers, New York and London
• Publication Date: 1937
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Women - Authors and Artists
  • Theater and Performing Arts
  • Poetry
  • Modern First Editions