The Glass Menagerie.

WILLIAMS, Tennessee.

$500.00

Item Number: 147049

New York: Random House, 1945.

First edition of the play that catapulted Williams from obscurity to fame. Octavo, original cloth. Fine in a near fine first-issue dust jacket.

The Glass Menagerie was Williams's first popular success and launched the brilliant pre-eminent lyric playwright's career. Since its premiere in Chicago in 1944, with the legendary Laurette Taylor in the role of Amanda, the play has been the bravura piece for great actresses from Jessica Tandy to Joanne Woodward, and is studied and performed in classrooms and theatres around the world. Championed by Chicago critics Ashton Stevens and Claudia Cassidy, whose enthusiasm helped build audiences so the producers could move the play to Broadway where it won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award in 1945. It was adapted to film twice, in 1950 directed by Irving Rapper, starring Gertrude Lawrence (Amanda), Jane Wyman (Laura), Arthur Kennedy (Tom) and Kirk Douglas and again in 1987, directed by Paul Newman and starring Joanne Woodward (Amanda), Karen Allen (Laura), John Malkovich (Tom) and James Naughton (Jim).