THE MASTER BUILDER. A Play in Three Acts. [J.M. Barrie's copy]

Ibsen, Henrik

Edité par Date d'édition : 1893

Translated from the Norwegian by Edmund Gosse & William Archer. London: William Heinemann, 1893. 4 pp undated ads plus 16 pp ads dated October 1892. Original light green cloth with black cloth spine. First Edition in English of this play first published in Copenhagen in late 1892, and first performed in January 1893 in Berlin and in London (theatre critic William Archer teamed up with Edmund Gosse to effect the English translation). An aging architect fears that his creative powers are fading, only to encounter a mysterious young woman who inspires him to attain great heights -- literally, as the play ends with him falling to his death from the top of his own building. This is a very good-plus copy (very minor soil and edge-wear, light green spine lettering less than bright). The front paste-down of this copy bears the book-label "From Sir James Barrie's Library." Fellow playwright J.M. Barrie is of course best-known for one of the most famous plays of all time, "Peter Pan: or, The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up" -- first performed in 1904, but not published in book form until 1928. But other than a one-performance biography, Barrie's very first performed play had come out in 1891, two years before this Ibsen one -- a debut hit, titled IBSEN'S GHOST. It was a comedic burlesque, or parody, of Henrik Ibsen's intense "problem plays" such as his "Hedda Gabler" of the year before (1890), his "Ghosts" of almost a decade earlier (1881) -- and, for that matter, of the not-yet-written "The Master Builder." (Why did Barrie choose Ibsen to parody? -- perhaps because their two styles could not be more opposite.) Quite an interesting association -- it wasn't until 1913 that King George V made Barrie a Baronet (the "Sir" on the booklabel), but Barrie may have acquired the book in 1893, undoubtedly eager to read the new play by the writer he had recently parodied. N° de réf. du vendeur 15874

Détails bibliographiques

Titre : THE MASTER BUILDER. A Play in Three Acts. [...
Date d'édition : 1893
Reliure : Couverture rigide
Edition : First Edition.