Gilbert: his life and strife - the author's own copy

Hesketh PEARSON

Published by London: Methuen, 1957

Free endpapers mildly embrowned, dustwrapper slightly faded and very slightly frayed at spine. The author's own copy of his biography of Sir William Schwenck Gilbert, with his ownership inscription, 5 October 1957, and on the rear free endpaper his pencilled note, "Publication date 10/10/57"; with his autograph corrections on pp. 115 and 270 and, loosely inserted, his typescript, 2pp. 4to, 27 August 1957, copying letters from Gilbert to F.A. Cellier, treasurer of the D'Oyly Carte Memorial, news-cuttings of reviews of the biography from The New York Times (Orville Prescott) and New York Herald (John K. Hutchens), February 1958, French's Acting Edition of Gilbert's "delightfully funny" Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (titled on the cover Rosencrantz and Guildenstein) [1893], sometime once folded, staples rusty) and an autograph letter signed from the playwright to (Sir) Arthur Pinero, 2pp. 8vo, [London] (4 Grosvenor Crescent), 8 March 1903, thanking him for sending his lecture - perhaps Robert Louis Stevenson as a Dramatist, delivered in Edinburgh, 24 February 1903: "with the sentiments of which I am in thorough accord. One can't take one's work too seriously - though it is quite possible to make that mistake as regards oneself." Dedicated, "TO JOAN AND JAMES THORNTON". "A happily stubborn man," writes the New York Herald's reviewer, "is Hesketh Pearson, the English actor-turned-author who just won't believe that a good biography can't be an entertainment as well. Ever since the reaction against Lytton Strachey and his school set in, this notion has been reviewed darkly in circles not given to reading for pleasure, but Mr. Pearson goes on testing it, and somehow he keeps coming out ahead. One explanation, perhaps, is that he unfailingly gives the impression, as he writes, that he himself is having a perfectly splendid time." Pearson met Pinero at dinner at Sir George Alexander's in 1914; they had a difference of opinion about the "genius" of Oscar Wilde. Seller Inventory # HK100075

Bibliographic Details

Title: Gilbert: his life and strife - the author's ...
Publisher: London: Methuen
Publication Date: 1957
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Near Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included
Signed: Inscribed by Author(s)
Edition: 1st Edition