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Wister, OwenBiblio.com
Watch Your Thirst
1923réf. 10941New York: The Macmillan Company 1923. Second-hand hardcover. Wister Owen. Watch Your Thirst: a dry opera in three acts. FIRST EDITION - Limited #652/1000 The Macmillan Company: New York 1923. 4to 280x210mm blue cloth bds t.e gilt 2viii21757pp. SIGNED edges lightly worn pps lightly agetoned WISTER Owen 1860-1938 Watch Your Thirst: a dry opera in three acts. New York : The Macmillan Company 1923. First and only edition thus¹. Limited No 652/1000 Printed on the Press of J J Little & Ives New York. Quarto 280x210mm publisher's blue cloth boards blind-stamped with the design of cocktail coupe glass gilt tiltes to upper board and spine top edge gilt fore and bottom edges untrimmed wide margins 2 viii 2 175 7pp. Eight out-of-text full page monochrome art-deco illustrations by George Howe. Limitation page signed by the author. Board edges lightly worn and soiled endpapers faintly foxed and agetoned closed tears to the bottom edge of the front free endpaper and pp.145/6; lacks dust jacket. Wister an American writer and historian active in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century is best known for his best-selling novel The Virginian; a work that fostered the creation of the cowboy as an American folk hero and established the genre of 'Western' fiction. He wrote many other works including several musical items. In 1923 Watch Your Thirst was performed at Wister's club The Tavern Club a private social club in Boston that held frequent dinners lectures and musical and theatre performances for its members. The fictional preface attributed to the long past Samuel Johnson sets the tone by noting his distaste not just lack of esteem for a people that can no longer trust itself to drink moderately. The half title asks the question "You may lead a man to water but can you stop his drink The libretto tells the story of Juno the Queen of Olympus concerned with propriety and virtue championing prohibition and other restrictions on mankind whilst other gods including Bacchus Venus and Minerva seek to circumvent or ignore her wishes drinking synthetic gin and cocktails where ever possible. Falling in love under the unwitting influence of his 'hooch' she embarrasses herself with Ganymede a mortal Bootlegger. Juno's principles are undermined and when confronted by the other residents of Olympus she agrees to relent so long as her secret is kept safe. There does not appear to have been any public performance and there is no record of any music although Wister most likely wrote music for the work having studied music at Harvard. Contemporary newspaper reviews are limited to reviewing and announcing this work: "A picture of prohibition enforcement on Mt Olympus that in both its satire and its wit is a most original burlesque on prohibition in theory and in practice."² An unusual and amusing response to prohibition and a worthy addition to any imbiber's collection. Uncommon. § Well held institutionally in the USA OCLC records only one holding in Australasia the University of Sydney. § Gabler G44470; Noling p.453. ¹ A second much shorter and rewritten version was performed and published upon the end of prohibition in 1933 ² "Watch Your Thirst" San Francisco Bulletin 4 June 1923 p.5 The Macmillan Company unknown
Books for Cooks · Australie216,00 $AU≈ 135,52 €
