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Vintage 1956 Sights And Spectacles Mary McCarthy Farrar Straus HC DJ 1st Ed
Title: Sights and Spectacles, 1937–1956: Theatre Chronicles.
Author: Mary McCarthy.
Format: 1956 first edition, first printing hardcover in orange-red cloth boards with black spine titling and the original black-and-white photographic dust jacket with red and white typography.
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, New York, United States.
Publication details: Copyright dates ranging from 1937 through 1956 credited to Mary McCarthy; first printing stated on the copyright page, 1956. Library of Congress catalog card number 56-5757. Printed in the United States by American Book–Stratford Press, Inc., New York, with simultaneous Canadian publication by Ambassador Books Ltd., Toronto.
Language: English.
Subject/Genre: Literary criticism; performing arts; theatre criticism; drama; essays.
Contents: Collects Mary McCarthy's theatre chronicles spanning 1937 to 1956, many originally appearing in Partisan Review and others reprinted from the New York Times and the London Observer. Essays discuss major playwrights and productions, including works by Shaw, Ibsen, Chekhov, O'Neill, George Kelly, Maxwell Anderson, Clifford Odets, Elmer Rice, Oscar Wilde, John Van Druten, Tennessee Williams, Shakespeare, and many others.
Interior: Text is set in a single-column serif type with an introductory essay followed by chronologically arranged theatre columns headed by month and year, such as "A Streetcar Called Success," "John Gabriel Borkman," "The Duchess of Malfi," and other detailed reviews of plays, actors, and productions on the New York and international stage.
Special attributes: First edition, first printing hardcover of Mary McCarthy's influential collection of theatre chronicles, issued by Farrar, Straus and Cudahy with the original dust jacket, an important midcentury volume of American theatre and literary criticism for readers and collectors interested in drama and performing arts.
Condition: Dust jacket shows overall rubbing and handling wear with general toning, surface scuffs, and scattered spots to the front portrait and rear panel, plus pronounced edge wear including several short tears, creases, and multiple chips with paper loss at the spine ends, lower front edge, and upper front flap corner. Jacket spine is browned and soiled with a frayed head and a larger chip at the foot exposing the board beneath. Front flap has a substantial triangular loss at the top outer corner with a darkened stain line along the lower edge; flap folds are rubbed. Red cloth boards underneath display light rubbing and a few small spots with softened, slightly frayed corners and spine ends but strong spine titling. Page-block edges are uniformly age-toned with dust soiling to the top edge and a few small spots along the fore and bottom edges.
