Title: The Harlequinade: An Excursion by Calthrop and Barker
Author: by Dion Clayton Calthrop and Granville Barker
What makes this copy particularly remarkable is its provenance. The signature of ownership on the front free end paper belongs to the pioneering American-born British photographer, who became known as the father of abstract photography. Alvin Langdon Coburn.
Signed at the top corner of the front free end paper with faded black ink - PLEASE SEE IMAGE)
PLEASE SEE MORE DETAILS ON HIS LIFE AND WORK BELOW.
PLEASE READ DESCRIPTION CAREFULLY AND PLEASE SEE PICTURES ABOVE. ALSO, NOTE THAT COLORS MIGHT DIFFER ON ANY COMPUTER / PHONE. THANK YOU!
First Edition
Published by Sidgwick & Jackson, 1918
The Harlequinade: An Excursion by Dion Clayton Calthrop and Harley Granville-Barker is a whimsical and creative theatre piece composed in the early 20th century.
Format: Hardcover
Book condition: Near Fine (Good). PROVENANCE: Alvin Langdon Coburn, famous photographer
Signature of ownership on the front free end paper. Signed by black ink (faded). Frontispiece and decorations by Lewis Baumer*. Pages are evenly age-toned. Foxing to edges and some light scattered foxing throughout the pages. Sand color cloth. Extremities lightly rubbed. Mild cracking between some of the pages.
Cover: Near Fine (Good). Sand color cloth. Brown lettering to cover. Extremities lightly rubbed.
Dust jacket: Fair to Near Fine (Fair to Good). Tears, chipping / missing small part on top of spine. Crease marks to inside flap (front). (PLEASE SEE IMAGE). Protected with mylar cover.
Dion Clayton Calthrop (1878 - 1937) was an English author and playwright. He and Harley Granville-Barker co-authored The Harlequinade: An Excursion in 1918. His other works include English Costume (1906), King Peter (1906), The Dance of Love (1907), Everybody's Secret (1909), Tinsel and Gold (1910) and Perpeuta Mary (1912).
Harley Granville-Barker (1877-1946) was an English actor, director, producer, critic and playwright. He made his first appearance onstage at the age of 14. In 1900 he became a leading member of the Stage Society. As a playwright, he experimented with form, and proved an extremely gifted writer of dialogue and architect of ideas. His best known plays are The Voysey Inheritance (1905), Waste (1906) and The Madras House (1909) and he and Calthrop co-authored The Harlequinade. His entire body of plays has been produced at the Shaw Festival in Canada, and has featured strongly in the work of director Sam Walters at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond upon Thames.
Lewis Baumer (1870 - 1963) He was best known as an English cartoonist who worked for more than fifty years for the British magazine Punch, from 1897. He was also a portrait and still life painter, pastellist, magazine and book illustrator.
PROVENANCE:
ALVIN LANGDON COBURN (1882 – 1966) was an early 20th-century photographer who became a key figure in the development of American pictorialism. He became the first major photographer to emphasize the visual potential of elevated viewpoints and later made some of the first completely abstract photographs.
In 1904 Coburn left for London with a commission to photograph celebrities. Among the memorable portraits he made there were those of the writers George Meredith (1904) and Henry James (1906) and the sculptor Auguste Rodin (1906). He even made a nude portrait of George Bernard Shaw (1906) posed as Rodin’s well-known sculpture The Thinker.
The co-author of this book, (Harley) Granville Barker and George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) were close friends and collaborators who revolutionized British theatre in the early 20th century. Together, they partnered at London's Royal Court Theatre (1904–1907), producing Shaw's plays and pioneering modern, intimate staging techniques.
Alvin Langdon Coburn and Granville Barker worked with Bernard Shaw around the same time (between 1904 and 1907). So it is our assumption, that the two have met (Coburn and Barker) while working with Shaw, thus this copy of The Harlequinade became part of Coburn's personal library.
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