With A H/W Author Initialed Notecard

Stoppard, Tom ~ Leopoldstadt : Together With A H/W Author Initialed Notecard

Faber and Faber, London : 2020

The First UK printing published by Faber and Faber, London in 2020. 8vo., original publisher's wraps in black, white and yellow, featuring photography by Seamus Ryan; The BOOK is in Fine unread condition with an unbroken spine. The book and notecard are protected in removable Mylar sleeves. The First UK wraps edition issued simultaneously with the casebound edition, with a full number line 1-10. This copy comes together with an initialed notecard loosely laid in, handwritten on Stoppard's own personal stationery, which refers to the prospects of a film adaptation of the play: "Please forgive this scrap of paper", he writes, "and the long delay... but there are no firm plans for a film yet, but some ongoing conversations. T.S." Set in Vienna over the period of some fifty years, Stoppard's critically-acclaimed play follows Herman Merz, a manufacturer and baptised Jew, his wife and Catholic Gretl, and his family as Austria passes through war, revolution, impoverishment, and annexation by Nazi Germany. Reportedly taking the playwright almost a year to compose, Stoppard later claimed that the story was extremely "personal to me, but I made it about a Viennese family so that it wouldn't seem to be about me." Stoppard was born in Zlín in the Czechoslovakia, and though he left the country with his parents on the day the Nazis invaded, all four of his grandparents died in the Holocaust. The play was first performed at the Wyndham's Theatre in London in January 2020, though performances were halted a few months later due to the Covid 19 pandemic. Stoppard later claimed in a BBC Radio 4 interview that 'Leopoldstadt' may be his final play. (Warner A20 a. 1b)

BINDING: Softcover
CONDITION: Fine