Pearce Charles Paul (1 results)

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. First Edition. Hardback. 8vo. pp xvi, 382. Original publisher's reddish purple cloth, bright gilt-blocked device to front cover; bright gilt lettering to spine. Spine ends a little bumped. With tissue-guarded photogravure plate and 46 illustrations. With pencil annotations, and ownership label of J. Paul de Castro (1874-1944) laid on to front pastedown. De Castro was a prominent Henry Fielding scholar, author, and expert on the 18th century including its coffee houses. The connection between this book and Fielding is that Fielding was greatly influenced by 'The Beggar's Opera', and wrote ten ballad operas inspired by it. The scholarly marginal notes in pencil, including references to Fielding and to coffee houses, are very probably by de Castro, as are the pencil notes in the same hand on the ffep (opposite his ownership label), on the verso of ffep, and on the rear fep. Laid on to the rear pastedown (opening out to show all three printed sides) is an original 1920s progamme for John Gay's 'The Beggar's Opera'. This is for the 1920-22 revival at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith. The inscription on the ffep refers to the play. The revival of the 1728 ballad opera at Hammersmith was one of the greatest theatrical successes of the 1920s: a contemporary newspaper cutting with a first night review is loosely inserted. A few slight marks to covers. A pleasing copy and VG. Very good.