Description
Two volumes. Volume 2 was issued first.
- Guest, Ivor. The Ballet of the Second Empire, 1847-1858. (Adam and Charles Black: London, 1955)
- Guest, Ivor. The Ballet of the Second Empire, 1858-1870. (Adam and Charles Black: London, 1953) with a preface by Serge Lifar.
Small Octavo. vii, 133 pages for volume 1st, xii, 148 for volume 2nd. Hardbound in dust jackets. Red, cloth covered boards with gilt stamping on spine. Volume 1st has 65 illustrations, volume 2nd has 77 illustrations.
Condition: Both DJs show wear and soiling. Foxing on endpapers. Previous owner’s name on FFE of both volumes of Byron R. Kelley
Provenance:
Byron R. Kelley: “Born in Oakmont, Allegheny County, he was a son of the late Walter H. and Mabel (Cope) Kelley.
“He served with the American Field Service in India during World War II.
“In the 1940s he served as assistant stage manager to Herbert Graf at the Metropolitan Opera and Tanglewood Music Center, where he appeared in the American premiere of “Peter Grimes” under Leonard Bernstein.
“From 1946-1951 he was director of the Pasadena and Laguna Beach playhouses in California and from 1951-1955 he worked for CBS directing “Suspense Theater,” “The Fred Waring Show,” and other drama, musical and variety shows.
“For four years until 1960 he was chief of professional entertainment for the Army troops serving in Europe. In the 1960s he was director of the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Harkness House for the Ballet Arts. He retired in 1973 as the director of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
“He was a graduate of Lehigh University and directed plays while he was an undergraduate. He also did graduate work at Yale and UCLA schools of drama.” – Obituary|April 14, 1999|The Allentown, PA Morning Call
Ivor Guest: “Guest’s first book, Napoleon III in England (1952), came from an interest in his birth town’s association with the exiled Napoleon III. Then, despite a successful career as a lawyer, Guest spent holidays and other leisure time researching the ballet of the Second Empire in the archives of the Bibliothèque de l’Opéra in Paris, producing two volumes on the subject entitled The Ballet of the Second Empire (1953, 1955).
“He received tributes in Dance Research: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research in 1995, the year of his 75th birthday; and in Dance Chronicle in 2001.”
