The Cocktail Party

Eighth Impression [with the typographical misprint on page 29 corrected]. 8vo. Pp. [6], 7–167, [3]. Publisher's green cloth, stamped in gilt to spine. D/w priced 12s 6d net to front flap. With an 'Appendix' of the score and lyrics of "One-Eyed Riley", plus the cast list for the first production at the Edinburgh Festival, August 22–27, 1949, with Robert Flemyng, Irene Worth and Alec Guinness.

Signed by the Author to the title-page with his printed name crossed through. Gently bumped to upper cover front edge, scattered foxing to prelims., close tears to folds of d/w spine tips, rubbed to upper corners, else Near Fine.

An examination in verse of a ménage à trois under the guise of an innocuous West End drawing room comedy. By curtain call, a restoration of marital and social order is achieved with the help of a quizzical psychiatrist.

Eliot's most successful, oft-revived post-war drama, its Broadway production receiving the 1950 Tony Award for Best Play, and its 1952 British TV broadcast amassing an estimated audience of three-and-a-half million viewers. It was while at work on the present drama, as a visiting scholar at Princeton in 1948, that word filtered through that Eliot had won the Nobel Prize in Literature. "An authentic modern masterpiece." –New York Post