Mrs. Warren’s Profession: a Play in Four Acts

Book Description

London: Grant Richards, 1902. [ii], xxxvi, [157]-235, [1]pp., 8vo. Collotype frontispiece of Fanny Brough as Mrs. Warren, and eleven plates, all from photographs of the original stage production. Original cloth, spine gilt-lettered; a little soiled but a pleasant copy. Front pastedown endpaper boldly signed “Fanny Brough,” the actress who played Mrs. Warren, with the bookplate of Archibald Firestone on the facing free endpaper. First separate edition, published earlier in Shaw’s collection Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant and here, thriftily, using the same sheets. This volume also has the first appearance of the important 29-page “Author’s Apology,” Shaw’s defence of what was considered one of the most scandalous plays to appear on the London stage. Shaw, of course, is quite unrepentant at presenting prostitution as a prosperous middle-class enterprise, and he compares himself at length with both Ibsen and Shakespeare.Fanny Brough, who played Mrs. Warren in the original production and whose photograph is the frontispiece and several other illustrations in this volume, was a distinguished actress on both the London and Broadway stages, especially in comedies of manners. She was also active in establishing specialized training for actors and actresses and organizing their earliest attempts at a trade union. This is a wonderful Shaw association copy, of one of his greatest plays. Archibald Firestone, whose bookplate is on the front free endpaper, had a substantial collection of Shaw, including presentation copies. The present copy has an old pencil note, “Fanny Brough’s copy, with her autograph,” but it is of course also possible that this copy belonged to a successful autograph-seeker.

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