DS, one page, 8.5 x 11, September 27, 1921. Agreement between Noel Coward and Boni & Liveright, Inc., in part: "This will confirm our verbal agreement whereby we are to publish, at our own expense, in the early spring season of 1922, your book of parodies which volume is to include a number of chapters in Withered Nosegays and to which you are to add five or six new chapters along the lines we have discussed. It is, of course, understood that his new material will be in our hands in time for publication date above mentioned." Coward agrees to be paid 15 cents a copy for the first 5000 sold, 20 cents for the next 5000, and 30 cents on all subsequent sales. Signed at the conclusion by Coward and countersigned by the president of Boni & Liveright. In very good, fragile condition, with edge tears and chips, irregular toning, and creasing to the top edge. Representing his first book contract, this is a magnificent and rare Noel Coward offering. Boni & Liveright went bankrupt in 1933, making such documents even rarer.
Published in 1922, A Withered Nosegay: Three Cod Pieces was the first book from acclaimed English wit and playwright Noel Coward, whom Terence Rattigan stated as 'simply a phenomenon and one that is unlikely to occur ever again in theatre history—actor, director, dramatist unrivaled this century.' As celebrated abroad as he was at home, Coward was the highest paid performer on the Las Vegas strip when he performed at Wilbur Clark's Desert Inn in 1955. Frank Sinatra, a huge admirer of Coward, chartered a plane so that all of his friends could be present. A great patriot for the British war effort during WWII, Coward won an Academy Honorary Award in 1943 for his naval film drama In Which We Serve, in which Coward performed as Captain E.V. Kinross, a character inspired by Captain Lord Louis Mountbatten.
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