Thornton Wilder, Our Town: A Play in Three Acts. New York: Coward McCann, 1938. First edition, a very good copy in an about near fine dust jacket with the $2.00 price present. An exceptional association and presentation copy, signed and inscribed by both the playwright and the play’s producer/director, and linked directly to the original Broadway production.
 
Octavo, 128pp. Original olive cloth with paper labels to spine and front board, blue topstain, and pictorial endpapers. Light discoloration to the cloth along the edges, gentle softening to the corners and spine tips, and slight spine lean. The dust jacket is a beauty—about near fine, with the $2.00 price intact and the flap corners clipped as is usual. Light wear to the folds and spine ends, sunning to the spine, and minor toning/soiling to the rear panel featuring the Wilder portrait.
 
This copy is inscribed by Thornton Wilder on the half‑title page to actress Doro Merande, who created the role of Mrs. Louella Soames—Grover’s Corners’ gossipy townswoman and choir member. Wilder writes: “For Doro Merande: for her unforgettable Mrs. Soams. With the gratitude and friendship of Thornton Wilder / New York – May 1938.” A warm, deeply personal inscription, dated in the year of publication and during the play’s successful run at New York’s Morosco Theatre, where it continued until November 1938. The play would go on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and Edward Albee would later describe it as “the greatest American play ever written.”
 
Additionally signed and inscribed by Jed Harris, the legendary producer/director of Our Town: “To Doro Merande, affectionately and respectfully, Jed Harris.” Harris’s inscription underscores the collaborative admiration surrounding Merande’s performance and adds a second major theatrical signature to the volume. The iconic jacket and endpapers came from a drawing by A.E. Fisher which was owned by Jed Harris who allowed it to be reproduced by the publishers for this book.
 
Overall, an attractive and important 1938 first edition of Wilder’s masterpiece, signed by both author and director, and inscribed to one of the original cast members whose performance helped define the play’s earliest life on the American stage. A superb association copy of one of the central works of twentieth‑century American drama.