Requiem for a Nun

New York: Random House, (1959).

Price: $750.00

Hardcover. First edition. Fine in a price-clipped near fine dustwrapper with some modest toning on the spine. A play from the Faulkner novel adapted by Ruth Ford. Inscribed by Ford to Tony Award-winning actress Marian Seldes: "Merry Christmas and love to Marian Seldes from Ruth Ford 1963." Ford, the Mississippi-born sister of surrealist author Charles Henri Ford, was a beautiful model and actress, first for Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre, and later in films and theater. Notably, she starred on Broadway in Jean Paul Sartre's *No Exit* in 1946, under the direction of John Huston (the last of five Broadway plays he directed). Her apartment in the Dakota became a salon for authors such as Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, Terrence McNally, and Truman Capote. A chance encounter between Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents in her Manhattan living room led to their collaboration, with her Dakota-neighbor Leonard Bernstein, on *West Side Story*. Similarly, she brought together Kay Thompson and Hilary Knight to create the celebrated stories of *Eloise*, the little girl who lived at the Plaza. Seldes, daughter of important journalist Gilbert Seldes, later married director and author Garson Kanin.

Ford is well known also for her long friendship with William Faulkner, which began with her dating his brother Dean in the early 1930s. Faulkner was openly smitten with Ford for many years. He wrote his experimental 1951 title *Requiem for a Nun*, a sequel to his early and controversial novel *Sanctuary*, with her in mind. He further declared, to the consternation of his agent and publisher, that it was her dramatic property (*Requiem for a Nun* was a mixture of stage play and novel). Stage production of the title stalled for years, partly because Faulkner's experimental drama did not lend itself to live theatre, and partly because the producers were unsure of Ford's suitability. Faulkner was adamant that it was her dramatic property, and in 1959 she adapted the play herself and starred in its London production opposite Scott. Her stage version received enthusiastic reviews in both London and New York, but did not fare so well with audiences and closed after a short run on Broadway. Ford continued to act on both stage and screen well into the 1980s. She passed away in 2009 at the age of 98.


Item #421079

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Item #421079 Requiem for a Nun. William FAULKNER, Ruth Ford.
Requiem for a Nun

William Faulkner
birth name: William Cuthbert Falkner
born: 9/25/1897
died: 7/6/1962
nationality: USA

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Biography

Novelist and short story writer best known for his cycle of works set in the fictional county of Yoknapatawpha, Mississippi. Faulkner (who added a "u" to his surname in 1924) began writing poetry but then developed a complicated, stream-of-consciousness prose style. Though appreciated in literary circles, by 1945 all his works from the productive previous two decades were out of print. In 1944 Malcolm Cowley and others initiated a critical reassessment of his life work as a cohesive whole, and within a few years he became the most lauded and studied living American author. Standard references include Joseph Blotner's biography (published 1974, revised 1984), the Catalog of the Carl Peterson Collection (1991) and Joseph Brodkey's multi-volume bibliographies of his own collection.more

Collecting tips:

Faulkner provides opportunities for the beginning collector, and challenges for the veteran collector. After his literary reassessment in the late 1940s Faulkner's works were printed in larger numbers and collectible copies of most of his later works are readily available. Prior to this, however, Faulkner was neither widely read nor appreciated. Fine copies of his early works are particularly difficult to obtain. Faulkner was also famously averse to signing trade editions of his books -- it is generally easier to find signed limited editions while authentic signed trade editions command a premium (and often have amusing stories of provenance). Faulkner's first book, a generally regarded as juvenile collection of poems, The Marble Faun (1924) is very uncommon. Paid for by his friend Phil Stone, the cardboard spine is often perished (or found restored), and the very thin paper jacket is often missing or heavily restored. Ironically, but not too surprisingly, this is the one Faulkner title that can be found signed, as he must have sent off a batch of them in the first flush of authorial pride. Signed or not however, you'll probably have to pay the equivalent of a luxury car for a jacketed copy. Perhaps more difficult to find in any kind of jacket is his first novel Soldier's Pay (1926). Copies in fine jackets are rare. Another one to look out for is Turnabout, a short story that was separately published in Canada in 1939 (in a sort of cheesy purple velour binding, issued without jacket) without the author's permission. Reportedly only about 50 copies were published, and while its hard to argue for its importance, its easy to argue for its rarity. Reportedly, one of our Canadian colleagues once noted a copy at a bookstore, and not knowing of its significance, but finding it intriguing, reported it to another American dealer, who immediately sent him off to secure it. However, before he did so, the Canadian dealer insisted on attending a poetry reading, which diversion from the mission nearly gave his American friend a coronary (all's well though - he did eventually secure the book). Thus if you are standing next to me, or any other first edition dealers of a certain age, who are scheming amongst themselves about the advisability of buying a certain book, and one says to the other "and remember, no poetry readings," you'll know what they're talking about.

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