An unrecorded typed manuscript of a tragedy written by Jocelyn Henry Clive ‘Harry’ Graham (23 December 1874 – 30 October 1936), a prominent English writer, journalist, and lyricist.
Written around 1908, Graham's unpublished (though seemingly performed at least once) annotated one-act play is an example of Edwardian historical romanticism, set in July 1793 and set entirely within Corday’s prison cell at the Conciergerie on the eve of her execution. Rather than focusing on political theory or the mechanics of the French Revolution, the text serves as a dramatic vignette exploring her internal state, dignity, and her impending death at the hands of the executioner, Charles-Henri Sanson.
Charlotte Corday was a French noblewoman and Girondin sympathizer known for assassinating the radical Jacobin journalist Jean-Paul Marat in his medicinal bath on July 13, 1793. Following a brief trial, she was sent to the guillotine four days later on July 17, 1793, becoming a prominent subject for artists and writers over the next century.
Harry Graham was educated at Eton College and later trained at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. He is best remembered for inventing a brand-new subgenre of poetry called ‘Ruthless Rhymes’.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Very good black, mock crocodile binding titled in gilt to upper. Front free endpaper inscribed ‘Harry Graham/Royal Court/Palace of Westminster/London S.W./ England’ (the author’s father was Clerk of the Parliaments until 1917, hence the address).
48 pp. typed and pasted onto versos only; stage directions underlined in red; annotations, additions, corrections and excisions throughout; appendix gives a biography of Charlotte Corday, Francois Chabot and Jean Jaques Hauer. Sound, sturdy and unmarked other than annotations throughout. Laid in is a studio photograph of an unknown young woman taken at the studio of Rita Martin.
