[Rarebooks] FS: Louise Bryant's Acting Copy of Eugene O'Neill's First Book with a Poem in O'Neill's Hand

[Charles Agvent]

Fromour new catalog--SUMMER MISCELLANY 2014--which contains 127 select 
items, all new arrivals, in a variety of fields. Highlights include the 
scarce First Issue of Shakespeare's POEMS [1709] in a beautiful Cosway 
binding; Thoreau's WORKS with a leaf of manuscript mentioning Walden 
Pond; one of 25 special copies of the Gregynog Aesop; Louise Bryant's 
acting copy of Eugene O'Neill's first book along with several John Reed 
association copies; a long run of signed and limited Raymond Carver 
titles; the first book of music by a Native American; a lengthy 
unpublished manuscript about Alaskan gold by poet Joaquin Miller; 
several ornithological works including Audubon's BIRDS OF AMERICA, 
Brisson's ORNITHOLOGIE, Lewin's BIRDS OF GREAT BRITAIN, most with 
beautiful hand-colored plates, and others; some scarce modern poetry and 
signed presidential books; signed copies of Emerson's POEMS, Rachel 
Carson's SILENT SPRING; and much more.


Here is a link to our illustrated pdf catalog on our website:
http://www.charlesagvent.com/shop/agvent/index.html?id=DLrIinxi&mv_pc=440



O'NEILL, Eugene (BRYANT, Louise). THIRST AND OTHER ONE ACT PLAYS. Louise 
Bryant's Copy. Boston: Gorham Press, (1914). First Edition. First book 
by this multiple Pulitzer Prize winner, perhaps the greatest playwright 
of the American theater, containing 5 short plays: THIRST, THE WEB, 
WARNINGS, FOG, and RECKLESSNESS. Atkinson AI-1-I: 1000 copies printed, 
financed by his father, the actor James O'Neill. This is Louise Bryant's 
copy with her ownership SIGNATURE dated 1916 on the front endpaper. The 
book is also SIGNED by O'Neill on the front pastedown with the 
unattributed first 5-line stanza of Ernest Dowson's poem "Exchanges" in 
O'Neill's hand: "'All that I had I brought,/Little enough I know,/A poor 
rhyme roughly wrought,/A rose to match thy snow;/All that I had I 
brought.'/Gene O'Neill -- T.Y.A." Additionally the book is SIGNED on the 
list of characters for the title play by each of the actors: George Cram 
Cook as A Gentleman, Louise Bryant as A Dancer, and O'Neill as A West 
Indian Mulatto Sailor. Below the cast list Bryant has written: "As 
played by the/Provincetown Players/Provincetown, Mass/Summer 1916." 
Bryant has made a similar notation on the cast list page for FOG: 
"Played by the Provincetown/Players--Playwrights Theatre/New York 
City--Winter 1917." THIRST, the second of O'Neill's plays to be 
produced, has a number of lines crossed out in pencil with some words 
added by Bryant who obviously used this text in the production of the 
play. The work of the Provincetown Players in the summer of 1916, with 
its production of THIRST and before that O'Neill's BOUND EAST FOR 
CARDIFF, along with plays by Bryant, John Reed, and others, is sometimes 
cited as the beginning of modern theater in the United States. An 
exceptional copy of this important book. Very Good, lacking the scarce 
dustwrapper.

George Cram Cook, husband of author Susan Glaspell, was the founder of 
the Provincetown Players. At the time of the production of THIRST, 
O'Neill was having a brief affair with Bryant, who was in a relationship 
with journalist John Reed whom she would marry that fall. Their love 
triangle was famously fictionalized in the film REDS with Warren Beatty 
as Reed, Diane Keaton as Bryant, and Jack Nicholson as O'Neill. 
Supposedly encouraged by Bryant, O'Neill took on the most stage time of 
his entire career performing in this play. Both THIRST and FOG have 
shipwrecks as plot devices, quite likely influenced by the sinking of 
the Titanic in 1912 as well as O'Neill's experience keeping watch in the 
crow's nest of the U.S.S. Philadelphia on the same route taken by the 
Titanic. (#017500)     $75,000.00

http://www.charlesagvent.com/shop/agvent/017500.html?id=zIqwwwfE&mv_pc=186

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CHARLES AGVENT

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