Fielding's First Popular Success
The Author's Farce; and the Pleasures of the Town. As Acted at the Theatre in the Hay-Market. Written by Scriblerus Secundus.
London: J. Roberts, 1730.
Price: $2,500.00
About the item
First edition. [viii], 59, [5] pp. 8vo. Fielding's First Popular Success. Period paneled calf. Some pale browning and spotting at margins, small closed tear to top margin of title and chip to following leaf. Cross III, p. 290-1; ESTC N15803. Provenance: Bernard Quaritch (pencil note on rear pastedown); Louis & Anne Marie Davidson (bookplate).
Item #308039
First edition of Fielding's third play, a comic ballad opera in the mold of Gay's Beggar's Opera; it ran for 41 nights in its first season and was subsequently revived. "In March 1730 at the Little Haymarket Theatre he had his first popular success with The Author's Farce; its third act, entitled ‘The Pleasures of the Town’, was played by actors who impersonated puppets representing well-known personalities of the day" (ODNB).
ESTC notes two variant woodcut headpiece on B1, with either a head or, as in the present copy, an enthroned Cupid. A scarce title; ABPC records only one copy at auction in the past 35 years.
