Poetry and Drama

First UK edition. Slim 8vo. Pp. 35, [5 (blank)]. Publisher's red cloth, spine lettered in gilt. Blue dust-jacket printed in red. 1/10,000 copies printed. First English edition (preceded by six months by the Harvard University Press U.S. edition).

Trace of spotting to top and fore-edges, flyleaves lightly offset, 1 cm closed tear to top edge of upper d/w panel, a hint of tanning to spine which bears a tiny closed tear to foot, else Fine.

The text of the inaugural Theodore Spencer Memorial Lecture delivered at Harvard University on November 21, 1950. Partly based upon an earlier lecture, delivered to European audiences in 1949 and printed in the November 1949 issue of the periodical Adam, under the title, "The Aims of Poetic Drama". Details Eliot's ideas on the use of poetry for dramatic purposes, which despite the phenomenal stage-success of The Cocktail Party, premiered in 1949 at the Edinburgh Festival, with successful West End and Broadway runs the following year, he brands "an unattainable ideal". "The most important statement on poetry for the stage in this generation.'' –Archibald MacLeish

[Gallup A57b]