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Richard Nelson : Madame Melville and The General from America

Grove Press, New York, 2001

ISBN 0802138446

8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. AC6 - A first edition (stated with complete numberline) paperback book SIGNED and inscribed to previous owner by Richard Nelson and Corin Redgrave on the half-title page in very good condition that has some bumped corners, less than half-inch tear on the front bottom left side, curled cover, some light discoloration and shelf wear. Long an associate of the Royal Shakespeare Company, American playwright Richard Nelson has been praised by critics on both sides of the Atlantic. He is, as the International Herald Tribune declared, "among the greatest dramatists of his generation." Madame Melville, set in Paris in 1966 before that city exploded in protest, presents the story of a fifteen-year-old American, Carl, and his beautiful teacher, Claudie Melville. In the course of one night and one day, the boy discovers an unimagined world where beauty, loneliness, sex, and art are one. The Daily Telegraph praised Madame Melville as "a play about art, music, friendship and the irrecoverable, unforgettable moment when an adolescent realizes that the world is full of wonder." The General from America provides a rich portrait of Benedict Arnold, a man most often dismissed simply as a traitor (at least in the United States). Nelson's account of Arnold's search for love and country, and his discovery of only compromise and despair, will haunt readers and audiences. 8.25"x5.25", 183 pages. Satisfaction Guaranteed. Richard John Nelson is an American playwright and librettist. He wrote the books for the Tony Award-winning musicals James Joyce's The Dead and the Broadway version of Chess, as well as the critically acclaimed play cycle The Apple Family Plays. He has worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and had ten plays produced there. Those plays include: Principia Scriptoriae (1986), Some Americans Abroad (1989), Two Shakespearean Actors (1990), Columbus and the Discovery of Japan (1992), Misha's Party (1993), New England (1994), The General From America (1996) and Goodnight Children Everywhere (1997). In November 2006, Frank's Home, about two days in the life of Frank Lloyd Wright, premiered in Chicago, Nelson's home town, at the Goodman Theatre (in association with Playwrights Horizons). In an interview in The Brooklyn Rail at the time of its New York debut, Nelson offers advice to young writers: "My advice is always to write, to write what really matters. I ask my students two questions: Why did you write it? And should I watch it? People ask about structure, form, character development, and I'm not even sure what all of that means. Try not to second guess yourself. Form will come if you focus on what you want to say with truth and honesty. Structure is the hand that holds up what you want to say." From 2005 to 2008, Nelson was the chair of the playwriting department at the Yale School of Drama. Corin William Redgrave was an English actor and activist. Redgrave played a wide range of character roles on film, television and stage. On stage, he was noted for performances by Shakespeare (such as Much Ado About Nothing, Henry IV, Part 1, Antony and Cleopatra, and The Tempest) and Noël Coward (a highly successful revival of A Song At Twilight co-starring his sister Vanessa Redgrave and his second wife, Kika Markham). For his role as the prison warden Boss Whalen in the Royal National Theatre production of Tennessee Williams's Not About Nightingales, Redgrave was nominated for an Evening Standard Award, and after a successful transfer of the production to New York, he received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play, in 1999. Two years later he starred in the original London production of The General from America as Benedict Arnold. When the play transferred to Broadway the following season Redgrave switched roles and portrayed George Washington . In 2005, Redgrave had just finished an engagement playing the lead in King Lear with the Royal Shakespeare Company in London when he suffered a severe heart attack. In 2008, he returned to the stage in a highly praised portrayal of Oscar Wilde in the one-man-play De Profundis. In 2009, he starred in Trumbo, which opened only hours after the death of his niece, Natasha Richardson. On screen he is best known for his roles in such acclaimed and diverse films as A Man for All Seasons (1966) as Thomas More's son-in-law, William Roper; Excalibur (1981) as the doomed Cornwall; In the Name of the Father (1993) as the corrupt lead police investigator; Persuasion (1994) as the foolish Sir Walter Eliot; and Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) as Hamish, the fiancé of Andie MacDowell's character. Redgrave appeared in British television programmes such as Ultraviolet, The Vice, Trial & Retribution, Shameless, Foyle's War, The Relief of Belsen, The Ice House and the Emmy Award-winning telefilm The Girl in the Cafe, in which he played the prime minister. He took the lead part of Sir George Grey in the New Zealand TV miniseries The Governor (1977). He wrote a play called Blunt Speaking, in which he performed at the Minerva Theatre (a second stage of the Chichester Festival Theatre) between 23 July - 10 August 2002.. Book Condition: Very Good. Binding: Paperback. Jacket: No Jacket as Issued

First Edition
Signed by Author

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