The Cocktail Party - A Comedy by T.S. ELIOT (1950)

Published by Faber and Faber , 1950, hardcover, 168 pages, loss & repair to dust jacket, loose notes & notes to endpaper, otherwise  condition: very good.

The Cocktail Party is a verse drama in three acts by T. S. Eliot written in 1948 and performed in 1949 at the Edinburgh Festival. It was published in 1950. It was the most popular of Eliot's seven plays in his lifetime, although his 1935 play, Murder in the Cathedral, is better remembered today. It focuses on a troubled married couple who, through the intervention of a mysterious stranger, settle their problems and move on with their lives.The Cocktail Party was written while Eliot was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. In 1950 it had successful runs in London and New York theaters (the Broadway production received the 1950 Tony Award for Best Play).

The play starts out seeming to be a light satire of the traditional British drawing room comedy. As it progresses, it becomes a darker philosophical/psychological treatment of human relations. Like many of Eliot's works, this uses absurdist elements to expose the isolation of the human condition. In another recurring theme of Eliot's plays, the Christian martyrdom of the mistress character is seen as a sacrifice that permits the predominantly secular life of the community to continue. The morality play is based on Euripides' play Alcestis.

                                                                                    ALSO WITH B.H. BLACKWELL BOOKSELLERS, OXFORD, LABEL.