VIOLA ALLEN IN HALL CAINE'S NEW PLAY THE ETERNAL CITY. Musical setting by Pietro Mascagni. Liebler & Co. Managers. (Souvenir Program).

New York: Meyer Brothers & Company, [1902]., [1902].. Good. - Quarto [approximately 12 inches high by 9-1/4 inches wide], softcover bound into dark tan wrappers with tan cord and with an illustration on the front wrap & decorations on the rear wrap in black & golden yellow. The top inch & the lower 2 inches of the covers are detached & the edges of the wraps are lightly chipped with some light creasing. 16 pages, including color decorations & decorative borders, 9 full-page & 1 textual black-and-white production photographs. The corners and the top & bottom edges of the pages are very lightly creased. Good.

Hall Caine and his wife spent four winters in Rome. On their visit in 1901 Caine finished his novel "The Eternal City", which turned out to be his greatest commercial success. After being serialized in Collier's Magazine between February and August 1901 it was immediately published in book form by Heinemann. It sold more than a million copies in English and was translated into thirteen languages. The stage adaptation opened at His Majesty's Theatre in London on October 2, 1902, produced by Herbert Beerbohm Tree with incidental music by Pietro Mascagni. A week later, Caine republished the novel, cutting out the whole political strand concerning the dispute between the Vatican and the Italian state on the temporal power of the Church.

This American production opened at the Victoria Theatre in New York City on November 17, 1902 and closed in February 1903. Hall Caine supervised the rehearsals. The production starred Viola Allen as Roma, Frederic de Belleville as Bonelli and Edward J. Morgan as Rossi. The text of the program gives a synopsis of each act of the play. The production photos include many pictures of Viola Allen in a series of magnificent gowns.

Rare souvenir program.