Und Pippa Tanzt!
By Gerhart Hauptmann
Published by S. Fischer Verlag: Berlin 1919
In Original Hardcover Bindings
"Und Pippa tanzt!—translated as And Pippa Dances!—is a German "glassworks fairy tale" in four acts by Gerhart Hauptmann. Set among glassworkers in the snowbound Silesian Mountains, the play centres upon Pippa, the beautiful and ethereal daughter of an Italian glassmaker. Her dancing captivates the men around her, particularly the idealistic young Michel Hellriegel and the primitive former glassblower Huhn, drawing the characters into a strange and ultimately tragic contest between beauty, imagination and brute physical force.
First performed in Berlin in 1906, the work marked a departure from the social realism for which Hauptmann was initially celebrated, combining recognisable working-class surroundings with mythology, symbolism and dreamlike fantasy. Pippa represents fragile beauty and artistic inspiration, while the four principal male characters embody competing aspects of reason, imagination, wisdom and instinct. The result is one of Hauptmann's most distinctive later dramas: a poetic meditation upon humanity's desire to possess beauty and the destruction that can follow. Hauptmann was awarded the 1912 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Published in Berlin by S. Fischer Verlag in 1919, this German-language edition is identified upon the copyright page as the combined eleventh and twelfth printing and comprises 109 pages. It is presented in an attractive period binding of patterned paper-covered boards with a cloth spine and printed paper spine label, with the text printed in traditional German Fraktur type. An appealing early edition of a major theatrical work by one of Germany's most important dramatists and Nobel laureates."
General wear and fading to covers and spine as shown. Pages clean and well presented. Binding is excellent with no loose pages and secure, firm covers. The attractive bookplate of "Georg J. Meyer" is present otherwise the copy is unmarked. A nice copy in very good condition overall. Please study photos to further understand condition.
