Betrayal Signed by Harold Pinter first edition 1978
London: Eyre Methuen Ltd, 1978
8vo., black boards lettered in silver to spine; in the blue and white Methuen dustwrapper (unclipped, £3.50 to front flap); pp. [xi], 12-138, [vi, ads]; slightly bruised at spine tips, else fine in essentially fine wrapper.
First edition, signed by the playwright to the title page.
Pinter’s first full-length play since No-Man’s Land (1975), and a hugely popular production which was first staged at the National Theatre on June 15th 1978. Inspired by Pinter’s own affair with the BBC presenter Joan Bakewell, the plot follows couple Emma and Robert, as well as Robert’s friend Jerry and his wife Judith. As Emma and Jerry’s relations continue over a period of seven years, the subsequent lies, cuckolds and ultimately betrayal is explored in detail, and in reverse, with the first two scenes detailing the aftermath of the affair, and the last showing how it began. At the time of Pinter’s affair, Joan was married to the producer and director Michael Bakewell, and Pinter to actress Vivien Merchant. In her later memoir The Centre of the Bed, Bakewell later claimed that the play was “extremely true to life”.
Over the years, the play has attracted a huge number of well-regarded actors. In the debut performance, Penelope Wilton played Emma, with Michael Gambon as Jerry and Daniel Massey as Robert. Later adaptations saw Bill Nighy, Martin Shaw and Kristin Scott Thomas in the lead roles, and most recently a Harold Pinter Theatre production cast Tom Hiddleston as Robert, Zawe Ashton as Emma and Charlie Cox as Jerry in a 2019 revival directed by Jamie Lloyd.
“There is hardly a line into which desire, pain, alarm, sorrow, rage or some kind of blend of feelings has not been compressed”, one Times article wrote, “like volatile gas in a cylinder less stable than it looks”. An exceptional copy with these attributes.