La Fleur de Coca: Pantomime

Paris: Théâtre Angelo Mariani, Imprimé chez Silvestre, 1892. Softcover. Fine. First edition. Quarto. 12 full-page photographic illustrations reproduced in "Glyptography". Printed paper wrappers. Fine. Edition of 500 copies issued by Angelo Mariani. One of the first modern publicity books, Angelo Mariani, a brilliant Corsican pharmacist who achieved widespread fame thanks to his coca wine and revolutionary advertising methods that made him, in many ways, the father of modern publicity. The Mariani wine with coca from Peru was a huge success of the Belle Époque. It consisted of the infusion of coca leaves in Bordeaux wine. It became the most popular drug at the end of the 19th century and was also the precursor of Coca-Cola, as Mariani and his products gradually reached even greater notoriety in the United States than in Europe. This pantomime, which was presented only once on June 29, 1892, to music by Leopold Gangloff, sets by Charles Toché, costumes by Paul Donny, and directed by P. L'Évesque and featured the mimes Séverin Cafferra and Miss Madeleine Dowe in the roles of Pierrot and Colombine. Rare. *OCLC* locates four copies (Harvard, MIT, Wellcome Library, Philadelphia Museum of Fine Arts).

Rare.