Golden Child. A libretto ... for an opera composed by Philip Bezanson with photographs from the television première of the Hallmark Hall of Fame

Kansas City: Hallmark Cards, December, 1960. Edition limited to 105 copies (this, no. 103); large 8vo, pp. 61, [1]; 4 mounted photographs; original checkerboard cloth, printed paper labels on spine and upper cover; one internal leaf wrinkled, but otherwise fine in the publisher's slipcase. From the library of Kim Merker. Signed at the end of the Acknowledgement page by Paul Engle and Philip Bezanson. "Hand set in Romanée type by Kim Merker and Harry Duncan ... printed by them on special paper and signed by the librettist and the composer." Berger, Printing and the Mind of Merker, 7: "Philip Bezanson, a composer in the School of Music, collaborated with Paul Engle on the opera, which was probably commissioned by Joyce Hall of Hallmark. Hall wanted copies of the libretto in book form to give to friends as a Christmas gift. Paul asked Harry if he would print it, but Harry at the time had given up most of his type, so he asked me if I would do it with him, using mine. We set it at the Typography Lab and printed it there on a Vandercook press ... After the book was sent to Hallmark, Con and I went home for the Christmas break. We and my family gathered around the television to watch the première of the opera on the Hallmark Hall of Fame show. I've never been so embarrassed in my life. It was dreadful. I left before the first act was over, and my family turned it off before the opera was finished."