Herakles.

First edition of MacLeish’s verse drama. Octavo, original cloth-backed boards. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author to the director of the play on the front free endpaper, facing the dedication to the Greek poet George Seferis, “Dear Alan! This play (if you will acknowledge it) is so much yours that it seems ridiculous to ‘inscribe’ a copy to you. I make it, therefore, an occasion for rendering you my admiration as always and my affection. Archie. Conway, August 20, 1967.” Alan Schneider directed the first production of Herakles, staged with Rosemary Harris as Megara by the Artists’ Producing Association in 1965, two years before the play reached its final published form, the authorship MacLeish acknowledges in his inscription. Schneider was among the foremost American directors of his generation and the great champion of the postwar stage in the United States: he directed the American premiere of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot in 1956 and remained Beckett’s preferred American director, staged the United States premieres of Pinter’s plays from the 1962 off-Broadway double bill of The Dumb Waiter and The Collection through the Broadway premiere of The Birthday Party in 1967, and won the 1963 Tony Award for Best Direction for the original production of Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Near fine in a very good dust jacket with light edgewear and rubbing. An exceptional association copy, inscribed by the poet to the director of its first production.