Strange Interlude
New York: Boni & Liveright, 1928. Single volume, measuring 8 x 5.5 inches: [10], 11-352. Original glazed teal pictorial cloth, upper board stamped in light blue with gilt facsimile of O’Neills signature, spine lettered in gilt, top edge stained black, color pictorial endpapers, original unclipped pictorial dust jacket priced at $2.50. Three archival tissue repairs to verso of jacket, with minimal loss to front flap fold.
First trade edition of Eugene O’Neill’s Strange Interlude, winner of the 1928 Pulitzer Prize for drama. The nine-act play, following the romantic crises of the tormented Nina Leeds, introduced audiences to O’Neill’s signature stream-of consciousness soliloquies: “No, I’m not myself yet. That’s just it. Not all myself. But I’ve been becoming myself. And I must finish!” The five-hour stage production premiered near simultaneously with this first book publication, the striking Art Deco dust jacket mirroring the dynamic between Nina and her lovers. Strange Interlude was both celebrated and parodied on screen: the voiceover soliloquies in Robert Z. Leonard’s 1932 film adaptation starring Clark Gable and Norma Shearer were irresistibly satirized in Fox Films’ Me and My Gal, where Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett converse in the style of “Strange Innertubes.” Atkinson A30-I-1.a. A near-fine copy of a landmark of modern psychological drama.
Price: $450.00