[Item #56710] A Decent Birth, A Happy Funeral. A Play in Three Acts and Six Scenes. William SAROYAN.

A Decent Birth, A Happy Funeral. A Play in Three Acts and Six Scenes

New York: Samuel French, (1949). First Edition. First commercial printing. Inscribed on front cover: "For Marion Schole / Sincerely, William Saroyan," undated but apparently contemporary with publication. 12mo; printed card wrappers; 69pp. Minimal edge-rubbing to wrappers, else fine.

Saroyan's war-time drama premiered in Boston, with a "semi-professional" cast, on Jan. 15, 1944. Bill Riley, reviewing the opening, described the play thus: "...occasionally, amid the profusion of words, there are flashes of warm, human wit, moments of acute deep perception...but there are oceans of moonshine talk that make pretty deep wading." The play was never produced on Broadway. A nicely inscribed copy of the first commercially-published edition, five years after the premiere; we have not been able to discover the identity of recipient Marion (or Marian) Schole.

Price: $125.00

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