PAGNOL, Marcel. Marius. Pièce en quatre actes et six tableaux. Représentée pour la première fois à Paris, le mercredi 9 mars 1929, sur la scène du « Théâtre de Paris ».
Paris, Fasquelle, 1931.

In-8 (209 x 155 mm), 261 pp., (1) f.
Paperback, untrimmed, uncut, slipcase.

First edition, first printing with a letter from the author.
One of 50 copies on Japon Impérial, this one bearing the number 16.

Precious autograph letter signed by Pagnol: ‘To Mr / Henri Bonnard / with all my sympathy, / Marcel Pagnol / Christmas 1931’.

The first part of the Marseilles Trilogy - Marius, Fanny, César - this play inaugurated the Provençal cycle that revolutionised both French theatre and cinema. Staged with Raimu in 1929 and immortalised on screen by Alexander Korda, the play was one of the first major transpositions from theatre to screen in French talkies. In short, Marius marks the birth of the Pagnol style: a lively, popular language, imbued with southern poetry, social tenderness and humanity.

‘The first part of a trilogy about Marseilles, this work established the young playwright who had made a name for himself the previous year with the first success of ’Topaze". [...] Marcel Pagnol evokes a whole people of Marseilles santons: Escartefigue, Panisse, Honorine... so many characters who smell of garlic and lavender, shellfish and pastis, nostalgic smells of the old port; a whole jovial, spirited, melancholic world, as close to laughter as to tears, to tragedy as to comedy". (Dictionnaire des Œuvres, IV, p. 403).

Spine unstained, freckles on first and last blank leaves; otherwise a fine uncut and untrimmed copy in remarkable condition.