Mario and Grisi: A Biography

First edition, first impression.  226pp, with black and white illustrations.  Red cloth-covered boards with gilt lettering on the spine.  Cream endpapers.  8vo.  Cloth very slightly rubbed on corners and spine ends.  Upper text block edge dust darkened with traces of dustiness, some scattered foxing on fore-edge.  Hint of toning in margins of endpapers else internally neat, clean, bright and tight.  In its original, slightly shelf worn dust wrapper, not price clipped a little rubbed on extreme edges and slightly sunned over spine.

Giovanni Mario and Giulia Grisi were among the greatest and best-loved singers of the mid 19th century.  Mario, for political reasons, was unable to perform in his native Italy while Grisi, after breaking her contract at La Scala, was also banned there.  Both performed around the world but increasingly London and Paris became their bases, and stories of their meeting, an strong mutual attraction, in London where splashed across the newspapers of the time, especially when Mario and Grisi decided to live together.