PIECES COSTUMEES: L'Alouette / Becket ou l'Honneur de Dieu / La Foire d'Empoigne.

Paris: Les Editions de la Table Ronde, 1960., 1960.. Very good. INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY JEAN ANOUILH - Octavo, off-white cloth titled between raised bands on the spine with a vignette color portrait of a French army officer on the front cover. With a cream silk bookmark. The corners of the covers are very lightly creased & there is a stain to the tail of the spine. 371 pages plus a 3-page colophon. Very good. <p>First trade edition and first publication of "La Foire d'Empoigne".<p>Inscribed in French and signed in full by the playwright on the half-title: "Pour Honoria Plesch pour la nouvelle annee pour une amitie nouvelle et pour le progres du francais...amicalement / Jean Anouilh / 1er janvier 61".<p>Jean Anouilh [1910-1987] was a French playwright whose career spanned five decades. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce, he is best known for his 1943 adaptation of Sophocles' "Antigone". The play was seen as an attack on Marshal Petain's Vichy government. Anouilh was one of France's most prolific writers in the postwar period. Much of his work addresses themes of maintaining integrity in a world of moral compromise.<p>Costume designer Honoria Plesch [1919-1990] was born in Berlin. In 1933, together with her brother Peter and her family, she left Germany and emigrated to England. Her most important professional assignment was as costume designer for the 1947 film "Brighton Rock" starring Richard Attenborough. Plesch was apparently Anouilh's neighbor for a time in Switzerland.<p>The text is in French.