London: Remington & Co., 1879. Hardcover. First Edition. This was Moore's second publication, and apart from a broadside of which only one copy is known, this is by far the rarest of his books. No copy has appeared at auction in the past decade. George Moore (1852-1933) was an Irish novelist, poet, critic, and dramatist who is often regarded as the first great modern Irish novelist. This play was done in collaboration with French dramatist Bernard Lopez, who had ignited Moore's interest in drama when they were fellow residents at the Hotel de Russie in Paris. Moore made the suggestion to collaborate after the failure of his first work, Flowers of Passion. The result was this, a five act verse tragedy that was never produced. It was considered at the time almost unreadable because of its poor verse and wooden characters. In later years Moore had very little regard for this early effort and never considered its reissue in any of the collected editions of his work. Bound in original blindstamped black cloth with gilt title and authors to front cover and title to spine. In Edwin Gilcher's bibliography of Moore he describes this as the "Theater (?) impression, slightly larger in size, repaged and without prefatory matter presumably...issued to send to theater managers in an effort to secure a production." Corners lightly bumped and small piece missing from top on spine. Interior pages are very nice. Ownership signature of Henry Knight on title page and bookplate of Rosita de Texada. In very good condition. Housed in a green silk folding case. 139 pages. DRA/080315. Very Good.

Item #28496

Price: $1,600.00