Williams, Tennessee

A Streetcar Named Desire. Norfolk, CT: New Directions, 1947

8vo. Publisher’s pink pictorial boards. Original pink printed dust-jacket with only light wear. In a quarter-morocco slipcase.

Crandell A5.1.a

A spectacular association copy of the first edition, owned by Peg Hillias, with her bookplate to the front pastedown. Hillias played Eunice both on Broadway and in Kazan’s screen adaptation, which garnered Oscars for stars Vivien Leigh, Karl Marlden, and Kim Hunter, as well as art director Richard Day. Kazan, Williams, and Marlon Brando—as well as the cinematographer, composer, and costume and sound designers—were nominated, but none took home a statue that evening. Hillias, who enjoyed rolls in The Wayward Girl and Peyton Place in 1957,  remains best known for her performance in Streetcar.

Inscribed by both Williams and Kazan, this copy also bears inscriptions and/or signatures by all of Hillias’s fellow cast members including Brando, Hunter, Tandy and Malden.

With an original ticket for the Desire streetcar in New Orleans, dated March 10, laid in.

Round robins of Streetcar—copies signed by a full cast—are almost unheard of.