This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 11/21/2024
GAY, John (1685-1732). The Beggar’s Opera. As it is Acted at the Theatre-Royal in Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields. The Second Edition: To which is Added The Ouverture in Score; and the Musick prefix’d to each Song. London: London: John Watts, 1728. 8vo. 76 pp. With A Table of 69 Songs; Overture Compos’d by Dr. Pepusch; typographic music throughout the text; plus woodcut head- and tailpieces. Bound by Rivière & Sons in twentieth-century full speckled calf, gilt ruled, spine with two blue gilt lettering-pieces, all edges gilt. Fine. SECOND EDITION. THE FIRST EXPANDED EDITION TO INCLUDE THE MUSIC PRINTED IN THE TEXT. There are at least 6 variant printings of the second edition. This copy is as follows: press figures, page 45, is correctly numbered; 2 books are advertised on the verso of the title page; the names of the Lilliputians are not listed on the recto of the fourth preliminary leaf. Gay’s highly successful ballad opera, satirizing popular Italian opera was an immediate triumph, and ran for a record 62 consecutive performances at the Theatre Royal where it premiered in January 1728. The first edition, printed earlier the same year, had 16 pages of engraved music at the end. Here, the music is printed in the text in woodcut. It features such memorable low-life characters as Polly Peachum, Jemmy Twitcher, Filch and Sukey Tawdry. For some lyrics, Gay borrowed from Allan Ramsay’s Gentle Shepherd. The music was composed by the German born Johann Christoph Pepusch, a contemporary of George Frederick Handel. It became the model for The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weil. (For details of the variants, see the edition of The Beggar’s Opera edited by P. E. Lewis (Edinburgh, 1973), pp. 28-33; Rothschild 928). With the bookplates of William Foster Stearns and Arthur and Charlotte Vershbow.