Table of Contents

Preface and acknowledgments; Timeline 1660 to 1894 compiled by Joseph Donohue; Part I. 1660 to 1800: 1. Introduction: the theatre from 1660 to 1800 Joseph Donohue; 2. Theatres and repertory Robert D. Hume; 3. Theatre and the female presence Joanne Lafler; 4. Theatre, politics and morality Derek Hughes; 5. Theatre companies and regulation Judith Milhous; 6. The Beggar's Opera: a case study Calhoun Winton; 7. Garrick at Drury Lane, 1747–76 Mark S. Auburn; 8. Theatre outside London, 1660–1775 Görel Garlick; 9. 1776: a critical year in perspective Edward A. Langhans; 10. The theatrical revolution, 1776–1843 Jane Moody; Part II. 1800 to 1895: 11. Introduction: the theatre from 1800 to 1895 Joseph Donohue; 12. Presence, personality and physicality: actors and their repertoires, 1776–1895 Jim Davis; 13. Theatres, their architecture and their audiences Joseph Donohue; 14. Stage design from Loutherbourg to Poel Christopher Baugh; 15. Theatre and mid-Victorian society, 1851–70 Richard W. Schoch; 16. Gendering Victorian theatre Kerry Powell; 17. Popular entertainment, 1776–1895 Dave Russell; 18. The Bells: a case study; a 'bare-ribbed skeleton' in a chest David Mayer; 19. The new drama and the old theatre Peter Thomson; 20. 1895: a critical year in perspective Joel Kaplan; Bibliography of works cited; Index.

Promotional Information

The second of three volumes looking at the turbulent public life of performance in Britain.

About the Author

Joseph Donohue is Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is the author of books and articles on the British and Irish theatre and drama, including Dramatic Character in the English Romantic Age (1970), Theatre in the Age of Kean (1975), The London Theatre at the End of the Eighteenth Century (1980) and Distance, Death and Desire in Salome (1997). He is the editor, with Ruth Berggren, of Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Ernest: A Reconstructive Critical Edition of the Text of the First Production, St James's Theatre, London, 1895 (1995).

Reviews

'… a set that will stand as the most valuable resource on British theater for some time to come. Essential.' Choice

'… exceptional … destined to prove one of the most erudite, and yet accessible, resources for theatre scholars and students as well as serious theatre practitioners … must be hailed as perhaps the most carefully compiled and comprehensively covered history ever attempted … I know of no library that has any other theatre history (focusing exclusively on British Theatre) on its shelves to challenge this great new work's pole position in the theatre reference stakes … All in all a great work.' Amateur Stage