Good Friday – a play in verse

Masefield, John

£45.00

Masefield wrote a number of poetic dramas on Christian themes (of which Good Friday was the first); but to his amazement, he encountered a ban on the performance of plays on biblical subjects that went back to the Reformation and had been revived a generation earlier to prevent production of Oscar Wilde’s Salome. However, a compromise was reached and in 1928 his “The Coming of Christ” was the first play to be performed in an English cathedral since the Middle Ages.
Good Friday was self-published in the UK during the First World War, in 1916 (having first appeared in The Fortnightly Review in 1915). The first edition in book-form was published in 1916 by Macmillan, New York with the title “Good Friday. A Dramatic Poem”, the author having been sent to the United States “under government auspices to help explain the British war effort” (ODNB).

1 in stock

Publisher
John Masefield
Publisher City
Lollingdon, Berkshire
Year
1916
Edition
1st
Format
h/b
Author
Masefield, John
SKU
IYC107003
Categories
Condition
Near Fine, 1st edition, Original blue cloth, printed paper labels to spine and front board, fore- and bottom edges untrimmed. With the plain paper dust jacket. Afew pale markings to boards. An excellent copy in the the dust jacket.
Size
12mo (190 x 130 / 7⅜" x 5")
Page Count
77
ISBN