Look Back in Anger; A Play in Three Acts

London: Faber & Faber, 1957. First Printing. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First hard bound edition (previously published a few weeks before in a soft bound acting edition) of Osborne's seminal autobiographical play, which spawned the phrase "angry young men" to describe the antiestablishment postwar generation of English writers. Slim crown 8vo (204 x 119mm): 96pp. Publisher's brown cloth, spine lettered in gold; photographic dust jacket by Julie Hamilton, priced 10s. 6d. A superlative copy (slight toning to end sheets), tightly bound (apparently unread) and virtually pristine throughout. Northouse & Walsh A3. First performed at the Royal Court Theatre, London, on 8 May 1956, Osborne's play centers on the love triangle of the disaffected working-class Jimmy Porter, his upper-middle-class wife, Alison, and her haughty best friend, Helena Charles. The play "restored rhetoric to the English stage for the first time since Shaw. It rescued language from its fashionably high-minded role in the verse plays of the day and allowed it back at the heart of the drama where it could drive both character and action. Osborne's ear for the evasiveness behind the clichés, banalities, and non sequiturs of contemporary English was exceptionally keen, and he gave judgment without quarter." (ODNB) N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.).