SOUVENIR PROGRAM FOR GORDON CRAIG’S ACIS AND GALATEA

CRAIG, Edward Gordon and SHAW, Martin. Acis and Galatea: Masque of Love. [London]: (J.J. Waddington), 1902. Slim quarto, original brown wrappers. $1200.

Scarce first edition of this program for Acis and Galatea, produced and directed by actor and master wood-engraver E. Gordon Craig.

Artist and actor E. Gordon Craig was the son of the great Ellen Terry. He began acting in Henry Irving’s company in 1889, the start of a long career in the theater, designing, producing and publishing. Acis and Galatea was produced and directed by Craig in 1902, with Martin Shaw, who directed the music. This scarce souvenir program for opening night, March 10th, contains excerpts and music from the play and is illustrated with plates of Craig’s costuming. Craig had become interested in wood-engraving through William Nicholson and used the medium to design sets and arrange stage situations. “He roughed in his designs on the polished boxwood blocks and then worked up his effects with a graver and a gouge… His early designs… began to manifest a sense of mystery and drama… By his mastery of wood-engraving, he was able to project tragic overtones through suggestion, not labored realism” (Hodnett, 226). See Ray 288; Houfe, 101-02.

Faint dampstaining to plates, fragile paper wrappers respined. Scarce.