A2 Martin Luther

Table of Contents

A2-a Regular edition

Title Page

Launch

Description

Contents

A2-a2 Theater (?) impression***

Description

Contents:

Bibliographical Comments

A2-a Regular edition

Title Page

MARTIN LUTHER:

A Tragedy,

IN FIVE ACTS.

BY

GEORGE MOORE,

Author of “Flowers of Passion,”

AND

BERNARD LOPEZ,

COLLABORATEUR DE

SCRIBE, MÉRY, AUGUSTE

LEFRANC, THÉOPHILE GAUTIER,

ALEXANDRE DUMAS PÈRE, VICTOR

SÉJOUR, ALBOIZE, CHARLES DESNOYER,

GÉRARD DE NERVAL, DUPENTY, LAURENCIN,

GRANGÉ, HIPPOLYTE COGNIARD, LELARGE,

DELACOUR, VARIN, CHARLES NARREY, ROCHEFORT

PÈRE, DUMANOIR, CLAIRVILLE ET SAINT GEORGES.

rule

London:

REMINGTON AND CO.

5, ARUNDEL STREET, STRAND, W.C.

short rule

1879.

[All Rights Reserved.]

Launch

Published April 1879 at 5/-

Description

Height: 7 1/8 in; 7.13 in; 18.1 cm 

Width: 4 3/4 in; 4.75 in; 12.07 cm

[A]6, B-M8, N2 (tipped in); pp [2], x, 180, comprising:

• blank page, with four-line “Acting Rights” notice within single-rule box in center of verso, not paginated;
• title page, verso blank, pp [i-ii];
• two-line quotation from Saint Gregory the Great, verso blank, pp [iii-iv];
• DRAMATIS PERSONAE, with AUTHOR’S NOTE on verso, pp [v-vi];
• SONNET DÉDICACE, p [vii];
• ODE DÉDICACE pp [viii]-x;
• PREFACE pp [l]-38;
• text of play, pp [39]-179
• with at foot of p 179:

Printed by

REMINGTON & CO., 5, Arundel Street, Strand, W.C. 

• p [180] blank;
• endpapers brown where facing;
• all edges trimmed, stained carmine on some copies, others plain;
• bound in bluish-gray cloth over beveled boards

• Danielson lists “greenish-blue endpapers,” bound in “red beveled cloth,” with “Bernardo” for “Bernard” on spine, and with a binder’s label pasted inside back cover, lettered: Bound by Bum & Co. The copy described was from the collection of Sir Lucas King, and there seems to be no record of any other copy so bound.

• with conventional designs in black at top and bottom of front and back covers, lettered in gilt on front:

MARTIN LUTHER

A Tragedy

and in center of back cover a black letter R within a circle;

• conventional gilt decorations and black and gilt rules at top and bottom of spine which is gilt lettered

MARTIN

LUTHER

A Tragedy

[rule]

GEORGE

MOORE

AND

BERNARD

LOPEZ

REMINGTON

Contents

1. “Sonnet Dédicace à Algernon Charles Swinburne,” signed “George Moore”
2. “Ode Dédicace à Algernon Charles Swinburne,” signed “Bernard Lopez”
3. “Preface,” which purports to be the correspondence between the two authors during the period of their collaboration

1. In Portraits: Real and Imaginary, London and New York, 1924, Emest Boyd says, “These eighteen letters may be cited as the authentic precursor of the prefaces subsequently made famous by Bernard Shaw. They are an amusing dissertation upon the art of playwriting in general and on Martin Luther in particular, with two interludes, consisting of a dramatization of an incident which occurred during Moore’s journey to London from Paris, and a dream in five cantos about the decadence of the English stage.”

4. Martin Luther

GM says, in the Prefatory Letter to the Williams bibliography, “Lopez . . . supplied me with the scenario of Martin Luther, or, shall I say, with instructions regarding the disposition of the acts.”

A2-a2 Theater (?) impression

Presumably this impression was issued to send to theater managers in an effort to secure a production, but as far as can be determined Martin Luther has never been produced. It may be the blank verse play submitted to Henry Irving by GM, who recalled the incident in “Bye, Bye Buchanan” in the Hawk, 19 November 1889.

Description

Height: 8 3/8 in; 8.38 in; 21.27 cm

Width:  5 1/2 in; 5.5 in; 13.97 cm

[A]2 (tipped in), [a]1 (tipped in between [A]1 and [A]2), [B]4, C-T4; pp [vi], 144, comprising:

• blank page, with notice of “Acting Rights” within single-rule box in center of verso, pp i-ii;
• title page as in regular impression (A2-a above), verso blank, pp [iii-iv];
• DRAMATIS PERSONAE, with AUTHOR’S NOTE on verso, pp [v-vi];
• text of play pp [1]-141;
• pp [142-44] blank;
• endpapers dark green where facing;
• all edges trimmed;
• bound in semi-limp black cloth, back cover blind stamped with letter R within a circle, conventional designs blind stamped on front cover, which is gilt lettered

MARTIN LUTHER

A Tragedy

BY

GEORGE MOORE &

BERNARD LOPEZ

• spine lettered up in gilt:

MARTIN LUTHER A Tragedy

The blind stamping on back and front covers and the first two lines of gilt lettering on the front cover are done with the same dies used for the binding of the regular impression.

Contents:

Text of play same as in regular edition (A2-a above), printed from same setting of type, but with prefatory matter omitted and with page numbers and signature letters changed.

Bibliographical Comments

The “Sonnet Dédicace” is reprinted in the “Preface” of the 1904 edition of Confessions of a Young Man (A12-c), and in section XI of the 1917 and subsequent editions (A12-d et seq.)