The Angel Intrudes. A Play in One Act
New York: Egmont Arens at the Washington Square Bookshop, 1918. Side-stitched pamphlet, measuring 6 x 4 inches: 24. Original yellow pictorial wrappers. Short split to upper wrapper at head of spine.
First edition of Floyd Dell’s one-act comedy, an early production of the Provincetown Players, featuring a young Edna St. Vincent Millay in the romantic lead. The Provincetown Players produced eight seasons of experimental theater between 1915 and 1922; The Angel Intrudes was one of four short plays that Dell wrote for the company during its time in Greenwich Village. During auditions, “a slender little girl with red-gold hair came to the greenroom. . . . looked her frivolous part to perfection, and read the lines so winningly that she was at once engaged.” This was Millay, fresh from Vassar, having just published her first book of poems. In the role of Annabelle, Millay played a flirt who seduces her boyfriend’s guardian angel: “Heaven was nothing to this.” Off stage, Dell and Millay promptly embarked on a love affair which would become a lifelong friendship, and Millay joined the Provincetown Players as a playwright as well as an actress. A near-fine copy, with a striking cover design depicting the angel enjoying his first cigarette.
Price: $300.00