[Rarebooks] fa: CALDERON - THREE COMEDIES - La Dama Duende, La Hija del Ayre, &c. 1685-87(?)

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, October 16. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/gtfqm2d

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Pedro Calderon de la Barca: Comedia Famosa. La Dama Duende. Unpaginated, 22 leaves (44 pp.): A-D4, E2. [WITH] Comedia Famosa. La La Hija del Ayre. Parte Primera [and] Parte Segunda. Both parts bound in one. Unpaginated, 40 leaves (80 pp.): A-E4; A-E4. [WITH:] Comedia Famosa. Para Vencer a Amor, Querer Vencerle. Fiesta que se represento a sus Magestades en el Salon de su Real Palacio. Unpaginated, 22 leaves (44 pp.): A-D4, E2.

Three volumes, 4tos (218 mm; 8 1/2 in.), bound in recent marbled paper covered boards. No imprints, so the publisher(s) and dates of publication are difficult to determine. Possibly extracted from Primera [-Tercera] parte de comedias del celebre poeta espanol don Pedro Calderon de la Barca , Madrid: Francisco Sanz, 1685-87 (the title-page of La Dama matches the 1685 title-page reproduced by Spain's Biblioteca Nacional); on the other hand, they're possibly from one or more 18th-century counterfeits of that edition. La Hija and Amor with some loss to the edges of the first leaf, affecting a few words; last two leaves of Amor bound out of order; contents with some generally mild toning, occasional spots, stains and light damp-staining, a few short edge-tears and small holes, else clean and sound in fresh modern bindings.

Three comedies by Calderon (1600-1681), the playwright who, along with Lope de Vega, defined the Golden Age of Spanish theatre. Of the three, perhaps the best known is La Dama Duende (The Phantom Lady), a cloak-and-dagger tale with the sort of fantastical elements that reached their apotheosis in the playwright's most famous work, La vida es sueno (Life is a Dream). Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote of it, in 1840: ""In the afternoon read La Dama Duende of Calderon - a very good comedy of 'cloak and sword'."