The Author's First Play

Pinter, Harold ~ The Birthday Party : Signed By The Author

Encore Publishing Co. Ltd. : 1959

The First UK Printing published by Encore Publishing Co.Ltd. in 1959. This edition was published solely as a wraps edition. The BOOK is in Very Good++ or better condition. A little creasing along the spine and a small crease at the upper front cover adjacent to the spine. The book remains tight and is free from erasures, inscriptions and markings. The book has been signed (without dedication) on the title page by Harold Pinter. A ticket for the signing event accompanies this title as provenance. The Birthday Party was first staged in the spring of 1958 at the Arts Theatre in Cambridge, before playing in Oxford and Wolverhampton. It opened in London, at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, in May 1958 and infamously closed after only eight performances. It's failure is said to have caused Pinter to consider ending his ambition to be a playwright but subsequent revivals have cemented it's status as a classic. In 1959 the play received it's first such re-evalution when it was performed by the Tavistock Repertory Company at the Tower Theatre in Islington, London. This production provides the cover photograph of this, the Encore's first edition. Pinter, who lived locally, saw the production and attended some rehearsals (although he was not directly involved in the production). The company, run by non-professionals, were the first to stage the play after it's 1958 opening. A rare first edition of Pinter's second full-length play (Having only been preceded by a student production play in 1957), published in limited numbers by Encore Publishing in 1959. Pinter went on to become one of the 20th century's greatest playwrights and was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2005. An exceptionally scarce title to find signed by the Nobel Laureate.

BINDING: Softcover
CONDITION: Very Good++