The Sleeping Prince: An Occasional Fairy Tale (Signed by Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier and Jeremy Spenser)

154pp. Signed on the front free endpaper by Vivien Leigh, Sir Laurence Olivier and Jeremy Spenser. In blue cloth-covered boards with gilt titles on spine (front board very slightly bowed, hint of fading to spine). Internally neat, clean, bright and tight barring a previous owner’s name on the front free endpaper. In its original illustrated dust jacket (a little bumped on upper edge, chipped around spine head, slightly sunned on spine, some visible shelf wear on recto). Dust jacket now protected in an archival quality mylar wrapper, fitted without the use of tapes or adhesives. Terence Rattigan’s ‘occasional fairy tale’ proved a brilliant success at the Phoenix Theatre in London when it opened with Vivien Leigh and Sir Laurence Oliver in the leading roles, and Jeremy Spenser playing the King. The play recounts what happens when his Royal Highness the Grand Duke Charles, Prince Regent of Carpathia comes to London for the coronation in 1991 and invites an attractive young American chorus girl to join him in the Royal Suite at the Carpathian Legation. Marilyn Munro bought the rights to and starred in the film which was released under the title The Prince and the Showgirl; the director was Sir Laurence Olivier who also reprised his stage role, playing the Prince alongside Munro’s showgirl. The play was later adapted into a stage musical, under the title The Girl who Came to Supper, with lyrics by Noel Coward. An important piece of stage and film history associated with some of the leading actors of the time.