Published 8 December 1927 at $15 in an edition of 1,240 copies, of which 450 were for England where they were priced at 3/3/-, plus 15 special copies (see below).

Date of publication from copyright data in Library of Congress. Will Ransom, however, gives “August 1927” as the publication date in Private Presses and Their Books, New York, 1929, from information supplied to him by James R. Wells, president of the Bowling Green Press. In the notice of limitation August is given as the date of printing.

Description

Height: 8 1/8 in; 8.13 in; 20.64 cm

Width: 4 7/8 in; 4.88 in; 12.38 cm

[1]4 ([1]1 and [1]2 are paste-down and free front endpapers, not counted in pagination), [2-8]4, [9]4 ([9]3 and [9]4 are free and pastedown rear endpapers, not counted in pagination); pp [ii], 62, comprising:

blank page, with notice of limitation on verso, p [i-ii];

TWELVE HUNDRED AND FORTY COPIES

PRINTED AT THE PRINTING HOUSE OF

WILLIAM EDWIN RUDGE, MOUNT VER-

NON, NEW YORK, AUGUST, 1927. DEC-

ORATIONS BY CLAIRE BRUCE. EACH

COPY SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR. THIS

IS NUMBER [numbered in red ink]

George Moore [signed in blue ink]

half title, verso blank, pp [1-2];
title page, with

BY THE BOWLING GREEN PRESS, INC.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES

OF AMERICA

on verso, pp [3-4];

“Preface Dedicatory” pp 5-7;
list of “Characters in the Play” p [8];
text pp 9-59 (with title at head of text, p 9, in terra-cotta colored ink);
pp [60-62] blank;
bound in light brown paper-covered boards, front and back covers plain,
red leather label on flat spine, gilt lettered up:

The Making of an Immortal

There are two states:

As above
Fifteen copies printed on green paper, as above except notice of limitation on p [ii] is omitted and the page is blank; instead there is a handwritten notice of limitation in green ink below the half title on p [1]:

Number one [or two to fifteen as the case may be] of fifteen copies

printed on green paper

George Moore [signed in black ink]

The idea for this short play was given to GM (circa 1902) by AE, according to Oliver St. John Gogarty, who relates in “Next Door to George Moore” in Saturday Review of Literature, 18 July 1936:

“Suppose,” AE went on, "you were to write a play making Shakespeare merely the mouth-piece for Elizabethan courtiers who feared to write under their own names: Bacon, the Earl of Oxford, Wriothesley — anyone. When Shakespeare has covered their identity in a few plays and finds them a success, he runs off with the credit and the true author finds himself in a position where to prosecute would only make him more suspected and embarrassed. So Shakespeare becomes immortal.”

John Butler Yeats on 11 July 1902 wrote to his son, William Butler Yeats, “I hear George Moore is interested in the question of Bacon and Shakespeare — Fancy it!” (J.B. Yeats: Letters to His Son W.B. Yeats and Others, London, 1944; New York, 1946). When GM readied the manuscript for publication John Eglinton assisted him, and on 11 March 1927 GM wrote to him that he “...appreciated your editing on every page.”

The Making of an Immortal was produced 1 April 1928 at the Arts Theatre in London, with incidental music by Sir Thomas Beecham, and with Malcolm Keen as Burbage, Leslie Faber as Bacon, Charles Carson as Shakespeare, Brion Glennie as the boy-Juliet Prenny Lister, Sybil Thorndike as Queen Elizabeth, Charles Laughton as Jonson, and Edmund Gwenn, Edward Chapman, and D. Hay Petrie in other roles. Another production was presented in 1929 by the Illyrian Pastoral Players at Beckenham, England.

When questioned by Edwin Gilcher in 1946 about this production, Mr. Laughton stated that the play was “incredibly bad” and “embarrassing” to the cast. The production, however, received several good notices from the critics. Charles Morgan wrote in the Times (London), “To read the play had been charming, full of humorous sketches of character, decorated with a luminous fancy, enriched with a prose which, even in its lightest lines, belongs to Moore and none other. How would it be in performance? …The play is not at its best till it is brought on the stage.”

Bibliographical Comment

See D:Fr-25 for a French translation.

Source: Curated by George Moore Interactive LLC (georgemooreinteractive.org) — Shared for research, educational, and personal use.