Eric Chaim Kline, Bookseller - Old and Rare Books

The Elements of a Work of Living Art (aka The Work of Living Art) [TYPESCRIPT EARLY TRANSLATION, INSCRIBED & SIGNED BY EDWARD F. KOOK TO HARRY HORNER] [WITH PUBLISHED EDITION]

Appia, Adolphe; [H.D. Albright (trans.)]

NP, n.d. [ca. 1930]. Hardcover. Quarto. (ii) 66pp. (single-sided leaves). Black buckram with gilt lettering on the front cover and spine. Signed and inscribed on the front free endpaper by Tony Award-winning stage lighting engineer and lecturer Edward F. Kook (1903–1990) to acclaimed Hollywood production designer and director Harry Horner (1910-1994).

This scarce typescript is an early draft of an English translation of Adolphe Appia's important treatise "L’œuvre d’Art Vivant" (The Work of Living Art). The work, originally published in French in 1921, discusses the author's thoughts on a more modern, three-dimensional and immersive theory of stage design, which was quite revolutionary in its time. Appia (1862-1928) was a Swiss architect and stage designer, most known for his designs for Wagner operas and his influential work analyzing the confluence of the performance space and its lighting, in the era of the emergence of modern theater.

This typescript does not attribute the translation, and it is not dated, but is likely the early work in progress version of H.D. Albright's translation, fist submitted as his master's thesis at Cornell (1931)* and finally published in a revised format in 1960. It should be noted that in this early version, the title is presented on the front cover and first printed page (preface) as "The Elements of a Work of Living Art", whereas the submitted thesis and published versions are titled simply "The Work of Living Art". The original French edition and the finally published English translation of the work (1960) include numerous images of Appia's concepts to accompany the text throughout, however this translation contains the text only.

[WITH A FIRST EDITION COPY OF THE 1960 ENGLISH TRANSLATION INCLUDED]

Minor rubbing to extremities, with light bumping to corners. Interior staining on some of the initial pages seems to be a result of the staining issues during the original production of the paper itself. Binding in very good+, interior in near fine condition overall. vg+ to near fine. Item #52765

*Drama scholar and teacher H.D. Albright (Harry Darkes Albright, b.1907) is known to have produced a translation of the work as his master's thesis at Cornell in 1931. Later, his translation was published by the University of Miami Press in 1960, as the first English edition of the work. The pagination of both the thesis version and the later published version differ significantly from this typescript and both use the more commonly translated title "The Work of Living Art".

We have only found one holding in OCLC of our version of the this work held at the New York Public Library, however it is incorrectly dated as 1920.

Price: $1,500.00