[ John Coulter, Irish Canadian playwright. ] Typescript of 'Sleep My Pretty One. A Play in Three Acts'.

136pp., 4to. Duplicated typescript (by Catherine Billinghust, Westminster) with pages on rectos only. Bound in grey card wraps, with red and black cloth spine and title typed on front cover. In good condition, with light signs of age and wear. '12' in manuscript at head of cover. 'Sleep My Pretty One' has been described as 'a study of a young girl driven to distraction by the death of her mother and the, to her, totally unacceptable remarriage of her father'. It was held under option for several years from 1951 by Olivier, and was staged in a Sunday night reading at the Royal Court Theatre, London. Around that time Coulter himself wrote: 'in 1951 Laurence Olivier Productions Ltd., bought a one-year option renewable for a second year on my play SLEEP MY PRETTY ONE. I had to return to Canada before any work could be done on production. This was unfortunate, because, as I am now told, had I been able to stay in London the play would have gone into production almost at once. But I went to Muskoka and started to write a new play. It was beginning to take shape when I had a cable recalling me to London. After arriving, discussion culminated in a rehearsed reading of the play by a professional cast on the stage of the St. James's with Sir L., the producer and myself out front. Olivier left that night for New York leaving me with some agreed revisions to be made. Sir L. has the play in New York now, where he may or may not be able to sign up the lead he considers to be essential'. It was published in Toronto in 1950, with the subtitle 'A play in modern dramatic verse for the stage'.