The Beggar's Opera. As it is Acted at the Theatre-Royal in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields. The Second Edition: To which is Added The Ouverture in Score; and the Musick prefix'd to each Song

1728. 2nd Edition . Hardcover. Fine. With A Table of 69 Songs; Overture Compos'd by Dr. Pepusch; typographic music throughout the text; plus woodcut head- and tailpieces. 8vo. Full speckled calf, gilt ruled, spine with 2 gilt lettering-pieces; aeg; by Rivière & Sons. London: John Watts, 1728. Second Edition. The first expanded edition to include the music printed in the text. Gays highly successful ballad opera, satirizing popular Italian opera was an immediate triumph, and ran for a record 62 consecutive performances at the Theatre Royal where it premiered in January 1728. The first edition, printed earlier the same year, had 16 pages of engraved music at the end. Here, the music is printed in the text in woodcut. It features such memorable low-life characters as Polly Peachum, Jemmy Twitcher, Filch and Sukey Tawdry. For some lyrics, Gay borrowed from Allan Ramsays Gentle Shepherd. The music was composed by the German born Johann Christoph Pepusch, a contemporary of George Frederick Handel. It became the model for The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weil. There are at least 6 variant printings of the second edition. This copy is as follows: press figures, page 45, is correctly numbered; 2 books are advertised on the verso of the title page; the names of the Lilliputians are not listed on the recto of the fourth preliminary leaf. (For details of the variants, see the edition of The Beggars Opera edited by P. E. Lewis (Edinburgh, 1973), pp. 28-33; Rothschild 928). With the bookplates of William Foster Stearns and Arthur and Charlotte Vershbow. A Fine Copy