A Streetcar Named Desire.

WILLIAMS, Tennessee.

$8,800.00

Item Number: 87896

New York: New Directions, 1947.

Early printing of Williams’ classic play, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948. Octavo, original illustrated boards. association copy, inscribed or signed by several cast members for producer Danny Selznick. Signed by Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Jessica Tandy, and Karl Malden. Inscribed by Kim Hunter on the verso of the first blank: “Love and best wishes always, Danny- one of my Favorite people- Kim.” Selznick’s ownership inscription on the lower corner of the half-title page. Danny Selznick is a producer and the youngest son of David O. Selznick; it was Selznick’s mother, Irene Mayer Selznick, who produced the stage version of Streetcar Named Desire; it was she who recommended to film producer Charles Feldman to cast Kim Hunter in the screen version. Very good in a very good price-clipped dust jacket. Jacket design by Alvin Lustig. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box. Rare and desirable signed by Brando and the other cast members.

A Streetcar Named Desire received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948. The play opened on Broadway on December 3, 1947, and closed on December 17, 1949, in the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. The Broadway production was directed by Elia Kazan and starred Marlon Brando, Jessica Tandy, Kim Hunter, and Karl Malden. The London production opened in 1949 with Bonar Colleano, Vivien Leigh, and Renee Asherson and was directed by Laurence Olivier. “No one dared approach this new thing without caution. They had just witnessed something unprecedented on the stage, a high-pitched, jagged, alarming—and comical!—drama structure” (Sam Staggs). It is often regarded among the finest of American plays of the 20th century.