Shaw, George Bernard:

$1,850 · Offered by William Reese Company

[TYPED LETTER, SIGNED WITH INITIALS, TO BLANCHE PATCH, WITH FOUR COSTUME DESIGNS FOR "ARMS & THE MAN"]. Shaw writes to his secretary: "My dear Blanche If you are anywhere in the direction of Whitehall Court look in and and [sic] search the Arms & The Man compartment for a bundle of sketches for the costumes, two of which are the original colored drawings and the rest copied outlines. Two sets of these outlines will be enough to bring to Ayot with the colored ones. We shall have to color them for Pascal. I am working at the new script now." The letter continues with details of arrangements for going to Ayot, and concludes: "No news. All serene here. GBS." The accompanying costume drawings are printed in blue ink on cream stock, and three of them reproduce Shaw's manuscript captions in the printing. Two are rather elaborate, incorporating multiple inset details in addition to the main drawing. The Sidney P. Albert Shaw collection at Brown includes four such cyclostyled costume drawings for Arms and the Man, with indications that Shaw produced a total of six ca. 1894 for a production of the play. The undertaking here most likely is indicative of their reuse associated with work on a prospective film adaptation of the play. Gabriel Pascal's film of Major Barbara was released earlier that month, and his version of Pygmalion appeared in 1939. And although Pascal went on to produce Caesar and Cleopatra in 1945, and Androcles and the Lion in 1952, this film adaptation appears not to

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