London: Hopwood & Crew, 1904

4to, pp. 16. Original paper wrappers, printed in black. A little age-toned and rubbed, and with dog-earing to the front lower corners (common in scores, the pages of which need to be turned quickly when being used). A very well-preserved copy.

First edition. PRODUCER FRANK CURZON'S COPY, WITH HIS OWNERSHIP SIGNATURE TO FRONT WRAPPER.

The musical Sergeant Brue opened at the Strand Theatre in London on 10 December 1904 and ran for a highly respectable 260 performances, and for a further 152 performances when it opened at the Knickerbocker Theatre in New York the following year. It was produced by Frank Curzon (whose copy this was), and featured P.G. Wodehouse's first ever show lyric, for the song Put Me In My Little Cell.

Wodehouse was in the audience on the show's opening night in London. His lyric was a big hit with the audience, and Wodehouse went to the second performance too, to watch it be a hit all over again. He wrote in his diary: 'Encored both times. Audience laughed several times during each verse. This is fame.' He was paid five guineas for the lyric, and promised more theatrical work by those who had commissioned him. Three days after the opening of the show, Wodehouse confided to his diary: 'On this, the 13th of December, 1904, time 12pm., I set it down that I have arrived. Letter from Cosmo Hamilton congratulating me on my work and promising commission to write lyrics for his next piece. I have a lyric in Sergeant Brue, a serial in The Captain, 5 books published, I am editing By The Way, Pearson's have two stories and two poems of mine, I have finished the Kid Brady stories, and I have a commission to do a weekly poem for Vanity Fair.'

He still had some way to go before becoming a household name, though: his name appeared on his very first piece of published sheet music as 'G.E. Wodehouse', and nowhere at all on this piano selection from the show.