Box of Monkeys, A, and other farce-comedies.
From A Prolific, If Obscure, Comedienne
[Theater]. Furniss, Grace Livingston. A Box Of Monkeys And Other Farce-Comedies. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1891.
8vo.; preliminaries lightly foxed; page edges dampstained; green cloth, stamped decoratively in gilt and dark green; light wear; previous female owner’s signature on first blank; book dealer’s stamp on lower edge of front pastedown.
First edition thus, including three additional comedies which appear in print for the first time; preceded by an 1889 publication of the title play alone. The other plays include “The Jack Trust”; “The Veneered Savage”; and “Tulu,” and all four fall loosely into the category of drawing-room comedies or comedies of manners. These funny satires of the middle and upper classes appear to have been influenced by the works of Oscar Wilde ever so slightly in their poking fun at aristocratic standards and covert hypocrisies of the day.
According to the Library of Congress database catalogue these early efforts were followed by several other plays, all apparently farces in a similar vein: Dakota Widow, A Comedy in One Act (1915); Perhaps: A Comedy in One Act (also 1915); Father Walks Out; A Comedy in Three Acts (1928); and Man On The Case, A Comedy in Three Acts (1931). Although Furniss’s output suggests a degree of popularity during her lifetime, like many women authors of the late 19th- and early 20th-century theater, she has escaped critical notice in modern day references, be they literary, dramatic, or gender-specific.
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