Description
For sale: a Rare and Exceptional first paperback edition, first printing of Not About Nightingales by Tennessee Williams. First New Directions Edition described, 1998 New Directions. First Printing, with no subsequent printing.
The exterior of this paperback edition is in Near Fine condition, with clean, illustrated covers with one partial corner crease on the front. Also with, clean page blocks, moderate surface wear, strong title on a square spine, a tight binding with no spine cracks, lightly rubbed spine ends, mild edge wear and lightly rounded corners. The interior of the book is in Near Fine condition with the previous owner’s name and the ghost of an erased price on the first free end paper. No other marks, inscriptions, or other signs of ownership inside. The inside covers and the interior pages are clean and bright, making it an excellent addition to any collection. Appears to be unread.
In early 1998, sixty years after it was written, one of Tennessee Williams’ first full-length plays, Not About Nightingales, was premiered by Britain’s Royal National Theatre and was immediately hailed as “one of the most remarkable theatrical discoveries of the last quarter century. Brought to the attention of the director Trevor Nunn by the actress Vanessa Redgrave (who has contributed a Foreword to this edition), this early work…changed our perception of a major writer and still packs a hefty political punch.
Written in 1938 and based on an actual newspaper story, the play follows the events of a prison atrocity which shocked the nation: convicts leading a hunger strike in a Pennsylvania prison were locked in a steam-heated cell and roasted to death. Williams later said: “I have never written anything since that could compete with it in violence and horror.” Its sympathetic treatment of black and homosexual characters may have kept the play unproduced in its own time. But its flashes of lyricism and compelling dialogue presage the great plays Williams has yet to write.
Small volume (8 x 5.2 x 0.6″) ships promptly in a manila envelope with the book wrapped in both craft paper and multiple layers of bubble wrap.
