The Cocktail Party

New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1950. First American Edition. Near fine/Very good. 8vo, 8 1/2 x 5 3/4 inches (219 x 147 mm); 190 pp., + 1 leaf of music, and verso with cast of first Edinburgh Festival production. Black cloth boards lettered in gold on spine; binding tight and pages clean with even toning especially on edges. Dust jacket printed in yellow and black, with spine panel sunned, 1/4 inch hole not affecting text and 1/2 inch tear in rear panel.
[Gallup A55b]. This is the most popular of Eliot's seven plays in his lifetime, although his 1935 play, Murder in the Cathedral, is better remembered today. It focuses on a troubled married couple who, through the intervention of a mysterious stranger, settle their problems and move on with their lives. It was written when the author was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey in 1948. First performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 1949, the play had successful runs in London and New York, and won the 1950 Tony Award for Best Play.
From the estate of Robert Cecil Bald (1901 - 1965), an Australian scholar of English Literature, who moved to the US to teach at Cornell University in 1937 and was then a professor at the University of Chicago from 1952 to 1965.