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The Collation

A Perfect Ten

American theater manager and playwright Augustin Daly (1838–1899) had a unique way of commemorating his productions. He collected illustrations, letters, and ephemera connected with the his staging, connected with historic productions of the play, and connected with the story of the play. However, instead of making a scrapbook from what he had gathered, he commissioned a professional inlayer to mount the material in paper “windows” and interleave them with similarly-mounted pages from his production’s printed acting edition. Then he had the whole thing specially bound.

Open book with text on the left, watercolor on the right.

Watercolor drawing of costume design added to William Shakespeare (1564–1616), Love’s Labor’s Lost, arranged…by Augustin Daly. New York: Privately printed for Mr. Daly, 1891. Extra-illustrations collected by Augustin Daly (1838–99), arranged and bound by Augustus Toedteberg (ca. 1823–1909), New York

Comments

Going to pass out from Shakespearean awesomeness: A Perfect Ten http://t.co/IGLIrYUF8g

@curthopkins — March 8, 2013

The mystery deepens… turns out I was careless when I skimmed the long list of Daly lot numbers packed into cases 26 through 31 at Eagle Storage in 1900. Up to five of the volumes might have been acquired by Mr. and Mrs. Folger AFTER the sale. Love’s Labor’s Lost even has the same bookplate (of Livingston Ludlow Biddle) as the just-acquired Midsummer Night’s Dream. Some other Daly items later owned by Biddle were acquired by the Folgers from a Philadelphia dealer in 1929, but I’ve not yet been able to determine if any of these extra-illustrated volumes were among them.

Erin Blake — March 8, 2013

The mustardseed costume alone is worth the price!

Lyn — March 12, 2013