Merrily We Roll Along: A Musical Comedy

New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1981. Softcover. Fine. Uncorrected proof. Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Book by George Furth. Based on the 1934 play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. Octavo. Printed green wrappers. Very slight sunning at the spine else fine. The front wrap notes "Illustrated with Photographs," but the proof is without photographs, as issued by the publisher.

According to Wikipedia: "Merrily premiered on Broadway on November 16, 1981, in a production directed by frequent Sondheim collaborator Hal Prince, with a cast almost exclusively of teenagers and young adults (including Jason Alexander and Giancarlo Esposito). However, the show was not the success the previous Sondheim-Prince collaborations had been: after a chaotic series of preview performances, it opened to widely negative reviews, and closed after 16 performances and 52 previews." The play has since been extensively re-written and has been staged successfully on several occasions, however, its first full Broadway revival was not until 2023.

A legendary rarity. *OCLC* appears to locate a single copy of a contemporary edition of the physical book (without indicating whether it is a proof or not). The failure of the musical caused Dodd, Mead to cancel the finished book. We believe it's very likely that the pre-publication uncorrected proof is the only surviving vestigial artifact of the intended publication of the play. According to one very reliable source, even Sondheim was unaware of its existence until decades later.