Navy cloth binding with embossed title and decoration on the spine. Title on the front board.

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A very rare book, please view the photographs. Johann Nepomuk Eduard Ambrosius Nestroy (7 December 1801 – 25 May 1862) was a singer, actor and playwright in the popular Austrian tradition of the Biedermeier period and its immediate aftermath. He participated in the 1848 revolutions and his work reflects the new liberal spirit then spreading throughout Europe. This work reflects his life, is highly readable and given its age is in ‘fair’ condition. 

Legacy: About half of Nestroy’s works have been revived by the modern German-speaking theatres and many are part and parcel of today’s Viennese repertoire. However, few have ever been translated into English. Only one, Einen Jux will er sich machen, has become well known to English-speaking theatregoers. It has become a classic more than once. It was first adapted as Thornton Wilder’s 1938 play The Merchant of Yonkers, which Wilder rewrote in 1954 as The Matchmaker. That version later became the 1964 musical Hello, Dolly! and 1969 film of the same name. Nestroy’s original play later achieved success as the 1981 play On the Razzle, which was translated by Stephen Plaice and adapted by Tom Stoppard.

Nestroy has a square—Nestroyplatz [de]—named after him in Vienna, as well as the station Nestroyplatz on Line 1 of the Vienna U-Bahn, which opened in 1979. When the Reichsbrücke had to be rebuilt after its collapse in 1976, the tender was won by a consortium named Project Johann Nestroy. The official name of the newly built bridge is probably Johann Nestroy Brücke, but that name doesn’t seem to have any currency.

One of the most important German speaking theatre awards is named after Nestroy. The Nestroy Theatre Prize is an annual award for primarily Austrian theatre with Oscar-like categories. Its ceremony is held in Vienna and broadcast live on national television. The Austrian illustrator and painter Reinhard Trinkler [de] adapted Nestroy’s play Der Talisman for a graphic novel of the same name.