Books with title The Cocktail Party

The Cocktail Party is a play by British playwright T. S. Eliot that first premiered in Edinburgh in 1949 and on Broadway one year later. Focusing on a troubled married couple that settles their problems and moves on with their life with the help of a mysterious stranger who attends a cocktail party with them, it explores themes that are common in many of Eliot’s works. These include the isolation of the human condition, and the power of Christian sacrifice to further the life of the community as a whole. Although it starts out seeming to be a satire of traditional British drawing room comedies, over the course of the play it takes on the tone of a darker philosophical study of human relations.—supersummary.com.

'Obviously something more than a successful play, it is the practical demonstration of a patently conceived theory of dramatic form, and as such of high historical interest.' Times Literary Supplement'Eliot has attempted here something very daring and well worth doing. He has taken the ordinary West End drawing room comedy convention - understatement, upper-class accents and all - and used it as a vehicle for utterly serious ideas.' Observer

Eliot's most popular play published in his lifetime. The Cocktail Party was written while Eliot was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in 1948. It was first performed at the Edinburgh Festival in 1949. In 1950 the play had successful runs in London and New York theaters (the Broadway production received the 1950 Tony Award for Best Play.) It focuses on a troubled married couple who, through the intervention of a mysterious stranger, settle their problems and move on with their lives. [wiki] [BHB]

Obviously something more than a successful play, it is the practical demonstration of a patently conceived theory of dramatic form, and as such of high historical interest.' Times Literary Supplement'Eliot has attempted here something very daring and well worth doing. He has taken the ordinary West End drawing room comedy convention - understatement, upper-class accents and all - and used it as a vehicle for utterly serious ideas.' Observer

Eliot, T.S. The Cocktail Party. London, Faber and Faber, 1971. 12,5 cm x 18,8 cm. 184 pages. Original Softcover. Very good condition with only minor signs of external wear. Some minor foxing. [Faber Paper Covered Editions] Thomas Stearns Eliot OM (26 September 1888 – 4 January 1965) was a British, American-born essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic, and one of the twentieth century's major poets. He immigrated to England in 1914 at age 25, settling, working and marrying there. He was eventually naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39, renouncing his American citizenship. Eliot attracted widespread attention for his poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915), which is seen as a masterpiece of the Modernist movement. It was followed by some of the best-known poems in the English language, including The Waste Land (1922), The Hollow Men (1925), Ash Wednesday (1930), and Four Quartets (1945). He is also known for his seven plays, particularly Murder in the Cathedral (1935). He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry. (Wikipedia).

NY, Harcourt, Brace and Company (1950) Not a First US Edition (no FE or FAE stated) but an early US printing with typographical markings of [e.5.50] on the copyright page. Black cloth boards with gilt spine lettering. Pages are lightly tanned, bit of shelfwear and previous owner name and date (1950) on front free endpaper, else very good hardcover. Words to One-Eyed Riley on the last page with the cast list from the 1949 Edinburgh Festival production on the reverse. Scarce dustjacket is fair with 3/4 inch chip at spine, spine age tanned, wrinkles at back small chips and closed tears and tanning at foreedges and along a 4 inch pin scratch at cover. A couple of short, long gone tape repair stains on the reverse of dustjacket. DJ as pictured, yellow with author name on black band. DJ in archival mylar cover. B317