The Maids

First UK edition. Crown 8vo. Pp. 43, [5, blank]. Card covers in integral French wraps, printed in black, with full-page author portrait to rear by John Vickers. Translated from the French by Bernard Frechtman.

Lightly tanned wraps, else Fine.

Originally performed at the Théâtre de l'Athénée in Paris on 17 April 1947, Les Bonnes had its London premiere in 1952 – in French – by the Institute of Contemporary Arts at the Mercury Theatre, Notting Hill Gate. The play's first UK production in English followed on 5 June 1956 at the New Lindsey Theatre Club. Solange and Claire are two housemaids who construct elaborate sadomasochistic rituals in their mistress's absence. The focus of their role-playing is the murder of Madame and they take turns portraying both sides of the power divide. Genet loosely based his play on the infamous sisters Christine and Léa Papin, who brutally murdered their employer and her daughter in Le Mans, France, in 1933.