Ibsen and the Actress.
Peggy Ashcroft’s copy
Published by Virginia Woolf
[Theater]. Robins, Elizabeth. Ibsen and the Actress. (The Hogarth Letters Second Series, No. 15.) London: The Hogarth Press, 1928.
12mo.; several leaves lightly foxed; buff printed wrappers; damp-stained; spine cracked and chipped.
First edition, with the cover design by Vanessa Bell; 1000 copies, half of which were pulped. Woolmer 174. A lovely association copy, from the library of British theater legend Peggy Ashcroft, with her ownership signature on the half-title. Known equally for her classical repertoire as for her feats with Beckett and Pinter, Ashcroft likely admired Robins (1862-1952) for her insight and passion in introducing Ibsen to the London stage.
A teenage VW was among the audiences Robins impressed with her portrayals of Ibsen’s female leads. In 1905 she reviewed Robins’s novel A Dark Lantern, and in 1920, The Mills of the Gods and Other Stories. Interestingly, she never commented in writing on Robin’s influential suffrage play, Votes for Women (1905) or its novel adaptation, The Convert (1907). Despite her admiration, Woolf did not meet Robins until 1928—at the ceremony for the Femina-Vie Heureuse prize she won for To the Lighthouse; there they began an acquaintance that endured until Woolf’s death.
(#5382)
Print Inquire
