Caricatures: In Quattro Parti.

CARUSO, Enrico.

$4,000.00

Item Number: 131641

New York: La Follia Di New York, 1908.

First edition of this compendium of Caruso’s caricatures. Quarto, original publisher’s half morocco with portrait label, illustrated with 150 pages of lithographed drawings. Presentation copy, with a full-page inscription by Caruso on the title page, “à mes amis Otto et Lina affectueusement Enrico Caruso London 1908”. In near fine condition. Exceptionally rare, with no other inscribed copies having appeared at auction in the last 15 years. Caruso visited London only once in 1908 for the Royal Gala concert at the Royal Albert Hall on May 30th.

Italian operatic tenor Enrico Caruso sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and the Americas, appearing in a wide variety of roles from the Italian and French repertoires that ranged from the lyric to the dramatic. Caruso also made approximately 260 commercially released recordings from 1902 to 1920. Caruso's 25-year career, stretching from 1895 to 1920, included 863 appearances at the New York Metropolitan Opera before he died at the age of 48. Thanks in part to his tremendously popular phonograph records, Caruso was one of the most famous personalities of his day and his fame has endured to the present. He was one of the first examples of a global media celebrity. Beyond records, Caruso's name became familiar to millions through newspapers, books, magazines, and the new media technology of the 20th century: cinema, the telephone and telegraph.