The Play's the ThingNotable Collections

Related Collections

Samuel French Company

The Greeks

Augustin Daly

Eugene O'Neill

20th Century New York and London

Samuel French Company

The Library holds an extensive collection of the acting editions published by the Samuel French and its predecessor firms (Lacy, Cumberland and others), largely the gift of M. Abbott Van Nostrand (Class of 1934), who was president of the firm from 1952 to 1990, and continued to be active in the firm until his death in 1995.

The following is a sampling of Samuel French titles.

Susan Buchan, The Wife of Flanders	Falkland L. Cary and Philip Weathers, Open Verdict	Georgy Barnwell
Stephen Dinsdale, Anorak of Fire	George Farquhar, The Inconstant	J. T. Haines, Wizard of the Wave
Arthur Kopit, Because He Can (script)	Wynn F. Miller, Dream Faces	Frank F. Moore, Kitty Clive
Elaine Morgan, The Waiting-Room	T. B. Morris, Dark Betrothal	Colin Morris, The Terrible Crime of Mr Bat
Eva Thomas Nettleton, Uncle Sam's Council	Mitchell Parish, Stardust	Wendy Wasserstein, The Sisters Rosensweig
Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited (adapted by R. Parsley)	Tennessee Williams, Suddenly Last Summer	H. A. Wrenn, The Clue of the Stone
J. F. Wright, Wise Folly	Frank Wyatt and William Norris, Mrs. Temple's Telegram	Valerie Wyngate, Pyjamas

The Greeks

This 1522 edition of two tragedies of Euripides, translated from Greek into Latin by Erasmus, is the earliest volume of Greek plays in the Archives and Special Collections.

Euripides. Euripidis tragoediae duae, Hecuba, & Iphigenia in Aulide.
Basel, 1522

John Dryden and Nathaniel Lee. Oedipus: A Tragedy.
1678. 4th edition: London, 1692

A 16th-century edition of the comedies of Aristophanes, printed in Greek.

Aristophanes. Aristophanis facetissimi Comoediæ undecim.
Plutus. Nebulæ. Ranæ. Eqites. Acharnes. Vespæ. Aues. Pax.
Concionantes. Cereris sacra celebrantes. Lysistrate.
Frankfurt, 1544

Augustine Daly

Augustin Daly was a celebrated American playwright and producer, notably of Shakespeare's plays. The Library holds a large collection of the promptbooks for his plays and those of others (except the plays of Shakespeare: those are in the Folger Shakespeare Library).

From the promptbook for Daly's production of Cyrano de Bergerac.

Shakespeare's Love's Labours Lost as printed from
the prompt copy for the production by Augustin Daly
at the Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York, 1874.

Eugene O'Neill Collection

Mario Parajón. El Teatro de O'Neill. Havana: Orígenes, 1952.

The Iceman Cometh. London: J. Cape, 1947.

Si, Iskarlen Kommer! (Swedish translation of The Iceman Cometh). Stockholm: Bonnier, 1947.

Mourning Becomes Electra: A Trilogy. New York: Horace Liveright, 1931. Autographed by the author.

This copy of Mourning Becomes Electra, number 130 of the limited signed edition (of 550 copies), was signed a second time by O'Neill on the half-title (at right), along with signatures of all the members of the original cast; on the facing fly-leaf are the signatures of all members of the second production of the play.

20th Century New York and London

Clippings relating to a performance of La Tosca, starring Sarah Bernhardt. From one of several scrapbooks related to New York City theater and opera compiled by Mrs. Margaret Blaisdell Byrd, mother-in-law of George Yerrall III (Class of 1941).

A 1918 issue of Play Pictorial, a monthly journal about theatre published in London