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Up For Sale Today is

Lazarus Laughed

by

Eugene O'Neill

Hardcover. 8vo. Boni & Liveright, New York. 1927. 179 pgs. First Edition/First Printing. Number 253 of 775 copies signed by the author. Signed by Eugene O'Neill on the limitation page.

Slipcased in paper slipcase with paper title label present to the slipcase. Bound in 1/2 cloth boards and pattern decorated paper covered boards with paper titles present to the spine. Boards have light shelf-wear present to the extremities. No ownership marks present.  Text is clean and free of marks. Binding tight and solid.

Lazurus Laughed is a long theo-philosophical meditation with more than a hundred actors making up a masked chorus. In theatrical format, Lazarus Laughed appears to be a Greek tragedy. But the underlying message is similar to the mystery plays from the Middle Ages. O'Neill's play, The Great God Brown, can be considered as an introduction to this play. The story features characters and events following the raising of Lazarus of Bethany from the dead by Jesus. As Lazarus is the first man to return from the realm of the dead, the crowd reacts intently to his words. Over and over again he declares to them that there is no death – only God’s eternal laughter. The more Lazarus laughs, the younger and stronger he becomes. The more he laughs, the older and weaker his wife Miriam (who trusts him but does not understand his laughter) becomes. The subsequent scenes portray a series of tests (perhaps similar to those trials of Job) by the Jews, Romans and Greeks to try the faith of Lazarus. Consequently, members of his family are taken from him, but Lazarus continues always to laugh, even as Miriam is poisoned by the Roman Emperor Tiberius and continuing on to the very end, when Tiberius burns him at the stake.

FROM WIKIPEDIA:

Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg. The drama Long Day's Journey into Night is often numbered on the short list of the finest American plays in the 20th century, alongside Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.

O'Neill's plays were among the first to include speeches in American vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of society. They struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, but ultimately slide into disillusionment and despair. Of his very few comedies, only one is well-known (Ah, Wilderness!). Nearly all of his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.

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Book formats and corresponding sizes  
Name Abbreviations Leaves Pages Approximate cover size (width × height)  
inches cm  
folio 2º or fo 2 4 12 × 19 30.5 × 48  
quarto 4º or 4to 4 8 9½ × 12 24 × 30.5  
octavo 8º or 8vo 8 16 6 × 9 15 × 23  
duodecimo or twelvemo 12º or 12mo 12 24 5 × 7⅜ 12.5 × 19  
sextodecimo or sixteenmo 16º or 16mo 16 32 4 × 6¾ 10 × 17  
octodecimo or eighteenmo 18º or 18mo 18 36 4 × 6½ 10 × 16.5  
trigesimo-secundo or thirty-twomo 32º or 32mo 32 64 3½ × 5½ 9 × 14  
quadragesimo-octavo or forty-eightmo 48º or 48mo 48 96 2½ × 4 6.5 × 10  
sexagesimo-quarto or sixty-fourmo 64º or 64mo 64 128 2 × 3 5 × 7.5  
 

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