LA GROTTE.

Paris: La Table Ronde, 1961., 1961.. Good. INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY JEAN ANOUILH - Octavo, softcover bound in printed cream wrappers. The binding is lightly soiled & creased with some small stains & with the bottom edge of the rear cover chipped. The spine is darkened. 177 pages plus colophon. The page edges are slightly darkened. The top corners & edges of pages 10-16 are chipped where they have been roughly opened. Good. <p>First trade edition, with the date "12-61" on the rear cover.<p>Inscribed in French and signed in full by the playwright on the half-title: "Pour Honoria qui fournit a l'homme de la grotte, son voisin - des poissons pour la nourriture et des pots d'usage mysterieux pour sa meditation...amicalement / Jean Anouilh / Fev 62".<p>Jean Anouilh [1910-1987] was a French playwright whose career spanned five decades. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce, he is best known for his 1943 adaptation of Sophocles' "Antigone". The play was seen as an attack on Marshal Petain's Vichy government. Anouilh was one of France's most prolific writers in the postwar period. Much of his work addresses themes of maintaining integrity in a world of moral compromise.<p>Costume designer Honoria Plesch [1919-1990] was born in Berlin. In 1933, together with her brother Peter and her family, she left Germany and emigrated to England. Her most important professional assignment was as costume designer for the 1947 film "Brighton Rock" starring Richard Attenborough. Plesch was apparently Anouilh's neighbor for a time in Switzerland.<p>The text is in French.