WILLIAMS, Tennessee I Rise in Flame, cried the Phoenix. A Play about D. H. Lawrence

Small folio; quarter denim-blue cloth over red and white paste paper boards; spine lettered in gilt; upper edge stained red, else untrimmed; pp. [xii], 11-42, [iv]; near-fine, with ever-so-slight rubbing to the edges of cloth and a tiny patch of sunning to the upper edge; together in the grey card slipcase, with title label lettered and ruled in black to the upper portion, just a couple of marks to the exterior. Provenance: previously in the collection of Clive Hirschhorn, with his neat pencilled signature and note dated 1988 to the front paste-down. 

Limited edition, one of just 310 copies on Rives paper, this copy no. 22 signed by Tennessee Williams beneath the limitation. Designed and printed by Harry Duncan and Wrightman Williams at the renowned Cummington Press, Cummington School of Arts, Massachusetts.  

A heartfelt one-act play, written by Williams in tribute to Lawrence, who passed away in March 1930. An introduction is provided by Lawrence’s wife Frieda, who writes “when I read this short play…it was so different from the ordinary everyday being-in-love, that has its limits so very soon. It was life in its freedom, its limitless possibilities, that bound us together. In our poverty the whole world with everything in it was ours.”

Set in the French Riviera where he died, this imaginary depiction of D. H. Lawrence's last moments depicts the intensity of Lawrence’s volatile relationship with his wife, as well as his controversial views on art and sex, which refer in particular to the 1930 exhibition of his paintings in which all the artworks were seized by police and would have been burned had it not been for a last-minute injunction. The play premiered at the Lucille Lortel Theater (formerly the Theatre de Lys) in New York City in April 1959 under the direction of Tom Brennan. 

This book previously in the collection of Clive Hirschhorn, the prominent author, film historian, and former journalist who served as theatre critic for The Sunday Express from 1966 to 1995. Hirschhorn is noted for conducting what is considered to be Judy Garland’s final interview, and throughout his career he interviewed such stars as Gene Kelly, Alfred Hitchcock, Marlene Dietrich, Frank Sinatra, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Jack Nicholson, Tennessee Williams, and numerous others. 

SKU: 1800245