South Pacific. A Musical Play

New York: Random House , 1949. With a Signed Photograph of Mary Martin

[MARTIN, Mary]. RODGERS, Richard. HAMMERSTEIN, Oscar. South Pacific. A Musical Play. Music by Richard Rodgers. Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein, 2nd, and Joshua Logan. Adapted from James A. Michener's Pulitzer Prize-Winning Tales of the South Pacific. New York: Random House, [1949].

First edition, first printing, second state (without Logan credit on copyright page).

With a Signed Photograph of Mary Martin pasted to front paste-down.

Small octavo (8 x 5 3/8 inches; 203 x 137 mm.). [xii], [1]-170 pp. Photogravure frontispiece and two photogravure plates.

Publisher's light gray cloth, front cover with palm tree in green and brown, spine blocked in brown and green and lettered in white. A near fine copy.

With a fine 8 x 5 inch black and white photograph pasted to the front paste-down, signed by Mary Martin.

South Pacific is a musical composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and book by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan. The work premiered in 1949 on Broadway and was an immediate hit, running for 1,925 performances. The plot is based on James A. Michener's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 book Tales of the South Pacific and combines elements of several of those stories. Rodgers and Hammerstein believed they could write a musical based on Michener's work that would be financially successful and, at the same time, send a strong progressive message on racism.

The original Broadway production enjoyed immense critical and box-office success, became the second-longest running Broadway musical to that point (behind Rodgers and Hammerstein's earlier Oklahoma! (1943)), and has remained popular ever since. After they signed Ezio Pinza and Mary Martin as the leads, Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote several of the songs with the particular talents of their stars in mind. The piece won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1950. Especially in the Southern U.S., its racial theme provoked controversy, for which its authors were unapologetic. Several of its songs, including "Bali Ha'i", "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair", "Some Enchanted Evening", "There Is Nothing Like a Dame", "Happy Talk", "Younger Than Springtime", and "I'm in Love with a Wonderful Guy", have become popular standards.

Mary Virginia Martin (1913 -1990) was an American actress and singer. A muse of Rodgers and Hammerstein, she originated many leading roles on stage over her career, including Nellie Forbush in South Pacific (1949), the title character in Peter Pan (1954), and Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music (1959). She was named a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1989. She was the mother of actor Larry Hagman.