SEARLE, Ronald.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

[Original illustrated manuscript] "Giselle: A Romantic Ballet In Two Acts. Presented by Les Ballet St Trinian's." A fine comic manuscript, with eight large original drawings, showing Searle's immortal naughty schoolgirls in a variety of scenes from a nightmarish production of the romantic ballet. The manuscript is unpublished and undated, but it was probably inspired by the Bolshoi's legendary 1956 visit to Covent Garden; Searle undoubtedly saw the ballet then, as he illustrated the great Russian ballerina Ulanova in the part of Giselle for Punch magazine, 10 October 1956. The second drawing in the manuscript includes a figure that strongly resembles her. Searle's five St Trinian's books were published from 1948 to 1953, although the fictional school was kept alive in the popular imagination by the comedy films that followed, beginning with The Belles of St Trinian's (1954).

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