The Long Christmas Dinner and Other Plays in One Act by Wilder, Thornton - 1931

NY and New Haven, Ct: Coward-McCann, Inc./Yale University Press, 1931. x, 130pp. Red cloth with silver gilt spine lettering, cream endpapers, red topstain, deckled fore-edge. Heavy, watermarked paper stock. Striking silver dust jacket with red and black typographic accents. Price $2.50. 5,900 copies printed [Edelstein]. SIGNED BY AUTHOR to first blank page. "Thornton Wilder was an American icon, and an internationally famous playwright and novelist. To this day, his works are read, performed and appreciated by audiences worldwide. Wilder was a three time Pulitzer Prize winner [for the plays 'Our Town' and 'The Skin of Our Teeth' and the novel 'The Bridge of San Luis Rey']. He is the only winner for both fiction and drama. His plays, like his novels, usually maintain that true meaning and beauty are found in ordinary experience. In addition to the three Pulitzer Prizes Wilder was awarded the Gold Medal for Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the National Book Committee's Medal for Literature." - Thornton Wilder Society. "Wilder, a very popular, intelligent and clever writer, with the capacity to exploit such modernist techniques as those of Gertrude Stein [and James Joyce] in comparatively commercial interests, has been the subject of considerable controversy [especially from the proletarian left for work that was deemed irrelevant to the sufferings of the poor during the Depression.]." - Martin Seymour-Smith. Six one-act plays [The Long Christmas Dinner, Queens of France, Pullman Car Hiawatha, Love, and How to Cure It, Such Things Only Happen in Books, The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden]. "These early works revealed much of Wilder's style and technique. 'Pullman Car Hiawatha'...consists of conversations between the passengers [and] the conversation is led by a stage manager who is not really one of the characters. [This device and] the themes Wilder explored in [this play] and 'The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden' [with] the stage nearly bare, with most of the setting left to the audience's imagination, and...very few props [was succesfully expanded in 'Our Town'] " - Clark L. Schumaker. Book is very tight, previous owner's signature to front endpaper, a few page fore-edges roughly cut, small [0.5 in.] thin white scratch to middle front cover, some minimal age-toning to cloth edges, but still very presentable and almost Fine. The problematic fragile silver, red and black Arthur Hawkins Jr-designed dustwrapper is very prone to wear to the edges, but this copy is in better shape than most with some slight loss and creasing to rear panel edges, small chips to spine and corner extremeties, small closed tears and creases to front panel edges [but no chips]. A very nice copy of a scarce book, especially signed.. Signed by Author. First Edition. Hard Cover. Near Fine in Very Good DJ/Very Good. Illus. by Dust Jacket Art By Arthur Hawkins Jr.. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.