ABE LINCOLN IN ILLINOIS

NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1939. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. Ownership copy of stage designer Jo Mielziner, with his signature upper right corner dated 1938 of the ffe. ABE LINCOLN was the first production of The Playwrights' Company formed in 1938 by Sherwood along with fellow playwrights Maxwell Anderson, Elmer Rice, and Kurt Weill, for which Mielziner designed the set. Laid-in is a TLS on The Playwrights' Company letterhead, dated July 16, 1949, from Sherwood to Mielziner and his wife Jean. In the letter, Sherwood laments the bad reviews he had just received that morning in the newspapers for MISS LIBERTY, w a Alan Jay Lerner musical for which (truncated) he had written the book that had opened the night before. Sherwood thanks Mielziner for the opening night telegram and notes that despite the less than enthusiastic reviews for MISS LIBERTY, the audience "was about the friendliest" and noting paranthetcially - "I am sure you remember the barrage of coughing that greeted ABE LINCON IN ILLINOIS". Wonderful artifact between arguably the mist influetial American scenic designer of the 20thC and one of America's most accomplished playwrights. (Inventory #: 011583)