BEST PLAYS OF THE EARLY AMERICAN THEATRE From the Beginning to 1916 by Gassner, John with Mollie Gassner, editors - 1967

NY: Crown. Very Good. 1967. First Edition. Hardcover. Very minor edge wear on the clean, sound binding. Contents are almost as new. No DJ. ; 9-3/8" Tall, xlviii + 716pp. Red cloth with gray cloth spine, black spine lettering, drawing of black theater masks on front cover. PLAYS. "The text published here is for the general reader, and certainly not for the antiquarian, the precisionist, nor the specialist-scholar. In many instances we have removed cumbersome and redundant pre-modern stage directons. We have borne in mind our primary intention, which is to provide a rapidly readable introduction to some of the plays of the period before 1916. We thought the best policy woudl be to mingle familiar but historically important plays with less well-know pieces. " Selective Bibliography. Some of the plays: The Contrast, 1787, Royall Tyler. Charles the Second, 1824, John Howard Payne and Washington Irving. Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1852, George L. Aiken. The Count of Monte Cristo, 1883, Charles Fechter. The Mouse-Trap, 1889, William Dean Howells. The Truth, 1907, Clyde Fitch. The Witching Hour, 1907, Augustus Thomas. Salvation Nell, 1908, Edward Sheldon. The Scarecrow, 1911, Percy MacKaye. .