STEIN, Joseph, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick

Fiddler on the Roof

First edition. Fine in very good dustwrapper with a couple of small chips. A scarce musical based on the stories of Sholom Aleichem which was a smash hit on Broadway and later became the basis for a successful movie. It was the first Broadway musical to run for more than 3000 performances. This copy has been Inscribed by Zero Mostel, who won a Tony Award for his starring role in the Broadway production as Teyve, to legendary New York Post columnist and drama critic Leonard Lyons, as well as extensively "collaborated" with by Mostel, including a full-page watercolor self-portrait on the front fly of himself as Tevye, Signed and dated by him in 1965, and with Lyons' name on it as well, and with some Hebrew letters that we cannot decipher. On the half-title, Mostel has drawn another self-portrait, using the arched title lettering as eyebrows. On the titlepage, he has crossed through the names of Stein, Bock, Harnick, and Sholom Aleichem, and replaced them with variants of his own name: Sam Mostel, Samuel Mostel, Simche Mostel, and Sholom Mostel; and finally, under the printed dedication "to our Fathers" he has added "whoever they are." Mostel was trained as an artist, his paintings sell routinely at auction, and this watercolor is particularly accomplished. A wonderful copy.

[BTC #291603]