COCTEAU, Jean.

For the Eagle with Two Heads. Autograph manuscript signed, 10 pages in-8, with drawings, on lined paper with flower and feather framing signed PR: unbound, in modern brown morocco spine folder and slipcase. AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT SIGNED OF THE PREFACE OF L'AIGLE À DEUX TÊTES. Cocteau's play in three acts was first performed in Brussels in October 1946, and then premiered in Paris in December of the same year at the Théâtre Hébertot, in a production by the author. Cocteau has recopied his text here, as it was printed, without erasures, omitting a few passages. He gives the origin of his play as well as his point of view on theater: "One knows the astonishing death of Louis II of Bavaria, the enigma that it poses and the innumerable texts that seek to solve it. I thought, while rereading some of these texts, that it would be interesting and conducive to the great game of theater, to invent a historical fact of this order and to write to reveal its secret." The manuscript is illustrated with six original drawings by Jean Cocteau. The first two show a two-headed eagle framing the text. The other four represent faces, three in profile and one in front, embracing the text. These leaves have been removed from a notebook; they have tears and some missing parts on the back.