"THE ETERNAL CONFLICT BETWEEN FLESH AND SPIRIT": SUMMER AND SMOKE, SIGNED BY TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

WILLIAMS, Tennessee. Summer and Smoke. New York: New Directions, 1948. Octavo, original light blue cloth, original dust jacket. $2800.

First edition of "one of Tennessee Williams' masterworks," advance review copy with publisher's printed slip, signed and dated by Tennessee Williams, in scarce first-issue dust jacket.

"Summer and Smoke is one of Tennessee Williams' masterworks for the stage, a play of the eternal conflict between flesh and spirit…. [Director Elia Kazan said of Williams] 'Everything in his life is in his plays, and everything in his plays is in his life… He was so naked in his plays, and Summer and Smoke is one of the best of them" (Spoto, Kindness of Strangers, 151, 179). Summer and Smoke made its Broadway premiere in October 1948 and was adapted to the screen in the 1951 Oscar-nominated film starring Geraldine Page and Laurence Harvey. Illustrated with scenes from the play. First-issue dust jacket, with three other plays by Williams listed on the rear flap. Crandell A7.I.a. The publisher's printed advance review slip is tipped to the front free endpaper, and Williams has signed below the slip, "Tennessee Williams, '76."

Book with interior generally fine, sunning to cloth; dust jacket with slight darkening to upper rear panel and minor rubbing to extremities. A very good signed advance review copy.