Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$45.00 + shipping
Description: [4]pp. Folded leaflet (folded to 19 x 14 cm), lower panel with perforated order slip intact. Fine. The prospectus for the title above ("now ready"), three titles already published (only three copies of BEFORE THE FLOWERS . remained available), and two forthcoming titles, one of which, OPERAS AND PLAYS, actually preceded MATISSE PICASSO . Not among the prospectuses recorded in Wilson & Uphill.
Seller: William Reese Company - Literature, ABAA, New Haven, CT, U.S.A.
Stein, Gertrude. Operas and Plays. Plain Editions, Paris, 1932.
Price: US$125.00 + shipping
Condition: Fair
Description: Poetry, prose. First edition, Limited to 500 copies, not numbered. Printed paper covers rubbed, spine moisture-stained, tanned. Light slipcase is moisture-stained around all the edges, all seams good. Owner's name and date on the first endpaper, some ink underlining through the text. Uncommon Stein title.
Seller: R Bryan Old Books, Sewell, NJ, U.S.A.
Price: US$175.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: 5 5/8 in x 7 1/2 in; 3 pages. Order from still attached. Very good. Includes information of the following Stein books: Matisse, Picasso; Two Long Poems; Operas and Plays; Lucy Church; Before the Flowers of Friendship Faded; How to Write.
Seller: Houle Rare Books/Autographs/ABAA/PADA, Palm Springs, CA, U.S.A.
Stein, Gertrude. Operas and Plays. Plain Edition, Paris, 1932.
Price: US$200.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Paris: Plain Edition, 1932. 400 pp. 19 x 14 cm. Brown stiff paper wrappers with black titling, in a matching slipcase. Printed in an edition of 500 copies by Maurice Darantiere. Some light toning to spine edge of slipcase, with rubbing to edges. Some toning to spine of book, with two small chips to either side of spine, and two small dampstains toward the head of the spine. Now protected in a mylar cover. Very fine splitting along front hinge. Interior otherwise clean and unmarked. Binding sound. . Limited. Soft Cover. Very Good/Very Good.
Seller: Munster & Company LLC, ABAA/ILAB, Corvallis, OR, U.S.A.
Stein, Gertrude. OPERAS AND PLAYS. Plain Edition, Paris, 1932.
Price: US$360.00 + shipping
Description: 8vo., 400pp.; VG; bound in tan wrappers, black lettering on spine and front cover, in printed slipcase of like color; mild wear, small stain to spine, interior clean; 1 of 500 copies; shelved case 2. 1284285. Shelved Dupont Bookstore.
Seller: Second Story Books, ABAA, Rockville, MD, U.S.A.
Gertrude Stein. Operas and Plays. Plain Editions, 1932.
Price: US$385.00 + shipping
Condition: Good
Description: slipcase edition, limited to 500 copies, case is slightly worn, no markings (inv-24ohio)
Seller: Fantastic Book Discoveries, Cockeysville, MD, U.S.A.
Stein, Gertrude. Operas and Plays. Plain Edition, Paris, 1932.
Price: US$393.03 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: 12mo. 400pp. [1]-colophon. Tan wrappers with black lettering to front cover and spine. Light creasing to the spine hear the head and circular rubber stamp of William Katz, New York to the front endpaper, the copy clean and tight, in the original slipcase with only light wear. Printed in an edition of only 500 copies.
Seller: Karol Krysik Books ABAC/ILAB, IOBA, PBFA, Toronto, ON, Canada
STEIN, Gertrude. Operas and Plays. Plain Edition, Paris, 1932.
Price: US$400.00 + shipping
Description: Small 8vo, tan wrappers (spine sunned and with a vertical crease). Paris: Plain Edition, (1932). First Edition. One of 500 copies. In the original printed board slipcase, which has a 1/4 inch chip at the base of the spine.
Seller: Argosy Book Store, ABAA, ILAB, New York, NY, U.S.A.
Stein (Gertrude).. Operas and Plays. Plain Edition, Paris,, 1932.
Price: US$434.77 + shipping
Description: One of 500 copies Wrappers very slightly soiled, but a very nice copy in rather worn slipcase
Seller: Bertram Rota Ltd, Kintbury, United Kingdom
STEIN, Gertrude.. Operas and Plays.. Paris: Plain Edition, 1932, 1932.
Price: US$637.02 + shipping
Description: First edition, first printing, one of 500 copies only, this copy of the fragile publication notably attractive. Operas and Plays was the penultimate title issued by Plain Edition, the publishers which Stein co-founded with Alice Toklas in 1930, and collects 22 of Stein's dramatic works written between 1913 and 1931, including her crucial 1927 work "Four Saints In Three Acts". Wilson A18. Small octavo. Original tan wrappers printed in black. Housed in the original slipcase. Minor creasing to toned spine, a couple of light marks to wrappers, faint scent of cigarette smoke lingering, a near-fine copy, uncommonly fresh, in the gently soiled slipcase with a few slight abrasions to side panels.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
Stein, Gertrude.. Operas And Plays.. Plain Edition. Paris. 1932., 1932.
Price: US$700.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: First Edition. Limited edition, 1 of 500 copies printed for Plain Edition by Maurice Darantiere. Includes her crucial 1927 work "Four Saints in Three Acts" and 22 of her dramatic works written between 1913 and 1931, Bound in tan wrappers, in printed slipcase of like color. 400pp. A near Fine copy (Spine of book slightly darkened; extremities of slipcase slightly darkened).
Seller: Peter Keisogloff Rare Books, Inc., Brecksville, OH, U.S.A.
Stein, Gertrude.. Operas and Plays.. Plain Editions, Paris, 1932.
Price: US$750.00 + shipping
Condition: Fine
Description: A Fine, clean, unworn copy in light tan wrappers, as issued, in Fine printed slipcase of same cover material. Slipcase slightly toned at edges, else Fine. 1/500 copies, the whole edition. 400pp. Beautiful copy.
Seller: Compass Rose Books, ABAA-ILAB, Kensington, CA, U.S.A.
STEIN, Gertrude. Operas and Plays.. Paris: 27 Rue de Fleurus, 1932., 1932.
Price: US$1250.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: PLAIN EDITION INSCRIBED BY ALICE TOKLAS. 1 vol., limited to 500 copies, inscribed by Alice in her tiny hand on the half-title "“To George Whol with the same lovely pen and this / time and always with gratitude and remembrance / Alice Toklas", original printed tan wrappers, with the original card slipcase, VERY GOOD, minor staining to edges of slipcase still GOOD+. Scarce inscribed by Gertrude's partner Alice Toklas.
Seller: D&D Galleries - ABAA, Somerville, NJ, U.S.A.
Stein, Gertrude. Operas and Plays. Plain Edition (1932), (Paris), 1932.
Price: US$1500.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: 400p small octavo, 1/500 copies printed. Inscribed by Stein "? and plays for Laura B. ? it is a pleasure in more than this willingness? a sentence for you, but which is it it's always a sentence for you Gertrude Stein" A very good copy in brown printed wraps in publisher's slipcase. Tiny stain on the spine, and enclosed in matching slipcase also very good with no splits just a few nicks. Attractive small bookplate. Stein published this herself.
Seller: Old New York Book Shop, ABAA, Atlanta, GA, U.S.A.
STEIN, Gertrude.. Operas and Plays.. Plain Edition, Paris., 1932.
Price: US$1592.55 + shipping
Description: First edition. Octavo. 400 pages. Wrappers. 500 copies printed.Presentation copy from the author, inscribed by her on the first blank. Apart from the author's name the inscription is indecipherable, although the words ''Belgium'' and ''France'' seem to emerge.Small gift inscription (dated 1933) inside front cover. Spine slightly darkened. Near fine in very good indeed card slipcase. Scarce in such bright condition.
Seller: Peter Ellis, Bookseller, ABA, ILAB, London, United Kingdom
STEIN, Gertrude.. Operas and Plays.. Plain Edition, Paris., 1932.
Price: US$1592.55 + shipping
Description: First edition. Octavo. 400 pages. Wrappers. 500 copies printed.Presentation copy from the author, inscribed on the first blank: ''To Gerald in memory of pleasant ways and pleasant days always - Gertrude. Paris, February 26/36.'' The recipient is Lord Berners (1883-1950) the British aesthete, composer, writer and wit, whose home Faringdon House was frequented by a wide range of artistic luminaries, including Gertrude Stein, Salvador Dali, Igor Stravinsky, Oliver Messel, Cecil Beaton, the Mitfords, H.G. Wells, Tom Driberg, the Sitwells, Constant Lambert, William Walton and many others. Stein and Berners collaborated on the ballet A Wedding Bouquet based on a text by the former and set to music by the latter; the choreography was by Frederick Ashton. The 1931 play included in this collection, They Must. Be Wedded. To their Wife, is the only one which has manuscript markings, these being underlinings which presumably marked texts for use in the ballet. The presentation inscription must date from the period when Stein and Berners were in active collaborations, as the ballet was first produced in 1937 at the Royal Opera House.Gatherings loose. Text block coming away from backstrip. Backstrip defective. Lacking the slipcase, of course. A less than beautiful copy, but a significant association.
Seller: Peter Ellis, Bookseller, ABA, ILAB, London, United Kingdom
Stein, Gertrude. OPERAS AND PLAYS. Plain Edition, Paris, 1932.
Price: US$2000.00 + shipping
Description: Association first edition, inscribed by Alice Toklas to author Elizabeth Sprigge, who would publish one of the earliest formal biographies of Stein in 1957 - and which Toklas repudiated. After Stein's death, Alice Toklas stewarded Stein's posthumous literary reputation, both assisting editors of new editions of Stein's texts and providing assistance (or obstacles, as the case may be) to biographers. At the time of this book's inscription, novelist Elizabeth Sprigge was working on her first biography, about the Modernist Swedish author August Strindberg, that would be favorably reviewed for its "remarkably accurate and clear treatment of a controversial figure" (Scandinavian Studies, Vol. 22 No. 1, 28). Toklas's inscription here - "In memory of the author and the understanding of her work" - suggests that Toklas was, in 1948, open to the possibility that Sprigge could view Stein in a similar way. Indeed, Toklas was impressed by Sprigge's biography of Strindberg upon its release the next year, and she initially supported Sprigge's idea of writing a biography of Stein because of it. In 1953, Toklas wrote her own editor at Harper to provide a connection for Sprigge to publish her planned biography of Stein; it was, Toklas's biographer remarked, "a recommendation that Alice came to regret" (Simon, 283). As Sprigge continued gathering material for the biography, it became clear that she intended to "include personal details [.] a practice Alice would not allow" (Simon, 284). Toklas warned off friends whom Sprigge was contacting and, in 1956, argued at length with Sprigge regarding the content of the biography - especially her own role in it. Toklas argued she herself "had no place in the book except, perhaps, as the editor of the Plain Edition" (Simon, 284), Stein and Toklas's short-lived small press that published this book, OPERAS AND PLAYS. Harper ultimately published Sprigge's GERTRUDE STEIN: HER LIFE AND WORK in 1957, much to Toklas's dismay. Printed in a run of only 500 copies, OPERAS AND PLAYS was the fourth book of five that Stein and Toklas's Plain Editions imprint issued. Stein had by this time become frustrated by the limitations of getting her work accepted by mainstream publishers and decided to take the means in hand herself: to raise funds for the establishment and operation of the press, Stein famously sold her Picasso painting "Woman with a Fan" (Dydo, 418). A scarce Stein text, in a copy rich with implications on the question of a writer's control over their own works and life. 7.25'' x 5.25''. Original tan printed wrappers. In original ten printed slipcase. 400, [2] pages. Inscribed by Toklas in brown ink to first leaf: "To Elizabeth Sprigge, / In memory of the author and the understanding of her work / Alice Toklas / Paris - Bastille Day - 48." Slipcase with significant soil and staining to top edge, toning to spine. Wrappers with slight bowing at corners, toned spine with central crease, tiny closed tear to top front joint.
Seller: Type Punch Matrix, Silver Spring, MD, U.S.A.
STEIN, Gertrude.. Operas and Plays.. Paris Maurice Darantière for Plain Edition August, 1932.
Price: US$3025.00 + shipping
Description: First edition, presentation copy inscribed by the author, one of 500 copies of Alice B. Toklas imprint; small 4to; light toning to leaves, otherwise unmarked internally; original tan wrappers printed in black, housed in the original tan slipcase, light toning and soiling; a pleasing copy. One of 500 copies, this one inscribed by the author to Colette. The presentation inscription reads: 'a Colette et Robert Jouvenel, in memory of the pleasant days in Paris and the charming country in which she was born[.] Gertrude Stein'. Operas and Plays, a collection of 22 of Stein's dramatic works written between 1913 and 1931, was the penultimate title issued by Plain Edition, the publishers which Stein co-founded with Alice Toklas in 1930.
Seller: Shapero Rare Books, London, United Kingdom