1921 The Beggar's Opera

Description

Author's Presentation Copy, Colour Plates, Illustrated, Original Binding, Publishers' Original Binding, Signed

Signed and inscribed by Grace Lovat Frazer, the widow of Claud Lovat Fraser, born Grace Inez Crawford, an American singer, actress, costume designer, translator of plays, and author of several books. The pair met in her theatre dressing room during a fitting for a faun costume for Hugo Rumbold's adaptation of L'Apres-midi d'un Faune. They soon married and, until Fraser's death in 1921, worked jointly on a number of theatre projects, including Fraser's long-running production of The Beggar's Opera. With an inscription which reads: "So glad we have met, with love from Grace Lovat Fraser, July 24th 1958." Illustrated with a colour frontispiece and six colour plates, with numerous in-text images. Collated, lacking one plate to face page 56 entitled 'Lucy Lockit'. The Beggar's Opera is a satirical ballad opera in three acts originally written in 1728. It is one of the watershed plays in Augustan drama and ran for sixty-two consecutive performances, making it the second longest run in theatre history up to that point. The play is the only example of the once thriving genre of satirical ballad opera to remain popular today. Written by John Gay, an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club, best known for this work. With music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch, a German-born composer who spent most of his working life in England. Illustrated by Claud Lovat Fraser, an English artist, designer and author.