PLAYS

Lord Lathom's plays were far from successful; in fact it seems to have been an act of charity on the publisher Martin Secker's part that the plays in two volumes were published at all. The Curtain Goes Up was published in an edition of 1000 copies and net sales amounted to 311 copies; Second Plays had a print run of 920 copies of which only 176 were sold, net. The company's ledger does not record if the residue was sold as remainders or simply wasted.

The preface in both editions was used by Lathom as a platform for his views. The first featured in the book of his plays The Curtain Goes Up and was published in 1927, the second was in Second Plays and was published in 1928.

Extant copies of these books are hard to come by. I have four copies one dedicated to a theatre and film actress of the 1920s, Doris Keane, signed Ned and dated 1927, another dedicated to Antonia Addison, signed by Lathom's wife Xenia Lathom and dated June 1928. The other copies are unsigned.

The preface to each book and the complete published plays are provided below as pdf files. You will need a copy of Adobe Reader to view them. The Complete Plays of the 3rd Earl of Lathom also contains an introduction, synopses, notes and letters to his publisher Martin Secker. The Complete Plays is also provided as a Ms Word file- this allows the reader to use the built-in hyperlinks and click to go to any play direct from the contents page.