The Recruiting Officer

London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1965. 144pp. Original publisher's red cloth, lettered in gilt, with original publisher's pictorial dustwrapper. Wrapper a trifle faded with minor losses and fading, unclipped. Bright and clean save a little water damage to the top right of text-block,. Inscribed to FFEP: 'To The Boss - With My Best - Ken, 1965'. Kenneth Tynan (1927-1980) was an influential - and groundbreaking - English theatre critic and writer, who rose to prominence during the 'Angry Young Man' movement that promoted theatrical realism. Despite being critical of Olivier's tenure at Chichester Festival Theatre, Tynan nonetheless recommended himself as Literary Director of the National Theatre. Olivier's wife, Joan, had to convince her husband to accept - a decision that would cement both his and Tynan's reputations internationally. This is the first edition of the companion volume to one of Tynan's National productions that starred Olivier, which Tynan explains in the introduction 'is a detailed illustrated account of a production that did for an English classic the kind of service a National Theatre exists to provide – that of cleaning away the accretions of dust and overprinting with which time has disfigured the text’. From the library of Laurence Olivier, to whom many books were gifted over the length of his illustrious, industrious, and enduring career as one of the most important figures of stage and screen in the 20th century. . First edition. Large 8vo.