Clyde Fitch — Beau Brummel

New York, John Lane Company, 1908. Cloth. The illustrated edition of an uncommon play on the life of the famous Regency socialite, the first play in Clyde Fitch's bright career. An early illustrated edition of the uncommon Beau Brummel: A Play in Four Acts, written by American dramatist Clyde Fitch for the esteemed English actor Richard Mansfield. Published in 1908, a year before Fitch's death, first published in 1890. Only five institutional copies of this play are available in the UK, including at the British Library. In the publisher's decorative original green cloth, with a frontispiece of Mansfield, and all nine other illustrated plates of the cast members posing in costume. Collated complete. His first play, Fitch was inspired to write the regency biopic of the famous dandy and George IV's friend from prolific British actor Richard Mansfield, who would play the titular character in every Broadway production. Fitch and Mansfield would become among the most popular Broadway playwrights and British actors of their generation. Mansfield's famous performance in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde leading to a theatregoer's accusation of Mansfield being Jack the Ripper. In the publisher's decorative original green cloth. Externally, slight bumping to the head and tail of the spine, and to the extremities, with fading to spine and rear board extremities. The odd faint mark to front board extremities. Glit decoration intact. Slight offsetting to free end papers from War Service Library bookplate to front pastedown and library card and sleeve to rear pastedown. Internally, mostly firmly bound, with plate adjoining p.74 loosening from tail of hinge. Loss to bottom extremity of leaf pp.23-24 from worming. Pages are generally bright and clean, with tidemarks to tails of hinges, mostly to first leaves, and the odd faint spot to leaf extremities. Good . Ill.: Various. Good .