The Complete Phantom of the Opera

New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1988. Hardcover. 4to. Black paper over boards with silver spine lettering, pictorial dust jacket. 169pp. Extensive illustrations (most color), pictorial endpapers. Fine/near fine. Superb and tight later (10th) printing of this survey of French author Gaston Leroux's 1909 novel and its various iterations, first on film and then as a musical -- this copy with a fine signature from the title star of the original 1986 Andrew Lloyd Webber stage musical: Tipped to inner flyleaf is a heavy stock 5" X 3" card signed boldly by MICHAEL CRAWFORD (born 1942) in blue ballpoint, which he dates 23 July 1971 at upper right. Laid in is the perfect bookmark: Crawford's original transmittal envelope, whose cancellation in London on 4 August 1971 shows this early example was signed when he starred in the British farce "No Sex Please, We're British" at the Strand Theatre, where it opened on 3 June. A most unusual copy.