History of English Drama 1660-1900: Volume 6, A Short-title Alphabetical Catalogue of Plays

577 Pages·1959·8.79 MB·English

by  Nicoll

A HISTORY OF
ENGLISH DRAMA
1660-1900

A HISTORY OF
ENGLISH DRAMA
BY
ALLARDYCE NICOLL
Professor of English Language and Literature
in the University of Birmingham
VOLUME VI
A SHORT-TITLE
ALPHABETICAL CATALOGUE OF PLAYS
PRODUCED OR PRINTED IN ENGLAND
FROM 1660 TO 1900
CAMBRIDGE
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
1959
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Delhi
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521109338
© Cambridge University Press 1959
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1959
This digitally printed version 2009
A catalogue recordf or this publication is availablef rom the British Library
ISBN 978-0-521-05827-8 hardback (Volume 1)
ISBN 978-0-521-10928-4 paperback (Volume 1)
ISBN 978-0-521-05828-5 hardback (Volume 2)
ISBN 978-0-521-10929-1 paperback (Volume 2)
ISBN 978-0-521-05829-2 hardback (Volume 3)
ISBN 978-0-521-10930-7 paperback (Volume 3)
ISBN 978-0-521-05830-8 hardback (Volume 4)
ISBN 978-0-521-10931-4 paperback (Volume 4)
ISBN 978-0-521-05831-5 hardback (Volume 5 Set)
ISBN 978-0-521-10932-1 paperback (Volume 5 Set)
ISBN 978-0-521-12932-9 paperback (Volume 5 Part 1)
ISBN 978-0-521-12936-7 paperback (Volume 5 Part 2)
ISBN 978-0-521-05832-2 hardback (Volume 6)
ISBN 978-0-521-10933-8 paperback (Volume 6)
ISBN 978-0-521-08416-1 hardback (Volume 7 Set)
ISBN 978-0-521-10946-8 paperback (Volume 7 Set)
ISBN 978-0-521-12940-4 paperback (Volume 7 Part 1)
ISBN 978-0-521-12947-3 paperback (Volume 7 Part 2)
ISBN 978-0-521-12548-2 paperback (7 Volume Set)
PREFATORY NOTE
IN the earlier volumes of this series grateful acknowledgement has
been made to several students of English theatrical history, and in
particular to Sir St Vincent Trowbridge, who have kindly drawn my
attention to obscure plays, as well as to sources of information con­
cerning authorship and production dates for plays already recorded.
In preparing the present catalogue, further help has come from
Professor Beecher Hogan (who provided me with a list of hitherto
un-noted Dublin performances) and from Mr Anthony M. Parish
(who has given me items of information based on his examination of
nineteenth-century printed texts). I wish also to take this opportunity
of thanking Mr P. F. Hinton for furnishing me with a catalogue of
the R. CromptonR hodes Collection now in the Birmingham Reference
Library.
A.N
THE SHAKESPEARE INSTITUTE
(UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM)
STRATFORD-UPON-AVON
February 1958
v

INTRODUCTION
THIS volume is much more than an index.
Normally, and properly, an index is dependent upon the book to
which it acts as a guide, and consequently it does not pretend to
possess other than a subsidiary value. It is true that the pages of this
volume do have as their first aim the object of thus serving as a guide,
but they are designed to go considerably beyond such an immediate
purpose and thus to have a positive, and to a certain extent indepen­
dent, value of their own. In one sense, while the catalogue presented
here may be regarded as an index to what is more fully given else­
where, it seeks to be a substantive list, as complete as possible, of
dramatic works produced in England from the Restoration to the end
of the nineteenth century.
If this had been merely an index, nothing more would have been
required, or expected, than short-tide entries of plays, followed by
volume and page references. The present list provides further in­
formation in three specific ways :
First, it indicates, in addition to the play-titles, the names of their
authors (where known), together with the years of original production,
publication or submission to the licensing authority. For immediate
reference, therefore, the catalogue stands independent of the
Handlists in the other volumes of this series, even although, of
course, these contain more detailed information than could here be
presented.
Secondly, it should be observed that this catalogue presents some
material not in the Hand-lists themselves. During its compilation a
number of fresh titles from the earlier periods came to light, as well
as new information on the authorship of some dramas previously
classed as anonymous. Such additional material has been incor­
porated here, with symbols to indicate the items or the supplementary
information provided for the first time.
Thirdly, there has been introduced into the catalogue an element
of a unique kind. From Archer's primitive play-catalogue of 1656,
on through Langbaine's An Account of the English Dramatick Poets
(1691) and Baker's Biographia Dramatica (1812), to the Stage
Cyclopaedia of 1909, various efforts have been made to provide
Vll
INTRODUCTION
alphabetically-arranged records of English dramatic activity; but in
none of these is any attempt made to list more than the main titles
(quite apart from the fact that, as the Hand-lists have demonstrated,
hundreds and indeed thousands of plays remained unrecorded).
Often, however, short main titles fail to offer the help that a student
needs: everyone working in this field must realise that frequently a
play originally presented under one title was later acted under another
name and that even more frequently dramas with sub-titles became
popularly, and even professionally, known not by their main but
by their alternative titles. A student unacquainted with Dryden's
works, for example, might search in vain for The Maiden Queen, the
name under which his Secret Love was usually performed, and he
would fail to find The City Wives' Confederacy, the name under which
Vanbrugh's The Confederacy was commonly acted. These are but two
examples out of many. Now, it is obvious that a student engaged in
elucidating theatrical references in contemporary diaries, correspond­
ence or playhouse documents may be saved a great deal of trouble, or
even may be provided with information which otherwise might elude
him, if he has available a catalogue not only of main titles but of sub­
titles and alternative titles as well. Accordingly, although it has
entailed a great deal of additional labour, the present catalogue has
been expanded so as to include at least the majority of such alternative
names for plays of the period 1660-1900.
Expansion of the catalogue, however, had to be halted somewhere.
The original plan called for the listing of all sub-titles and for the
attaching to these of author and date references similar to those used
for the main titles. The carrying out of a plan of this kind would
obviously have swollen this volume, already lengthy, to inordinate
proportions, and some modifications had perforce to be adopted. To
save space, most of the Italian operas which appear in the Hand-lists
have been omitted here-the only exceptions being those early operas
of Addison's time which mingle English with their Italian and those
of later date which have English translations prepared by known
dramatic authors. Since the Italian operas are given alphabetically in
the Hand-lists, their omission should not cause any difficulty if
reference has to be made to them. Similarly, the repertoire of the
French and Italian comedians presented in London early in the
eighteenth century has not been included in the catalogue.
While the leaving out of this material resulted in a certain saving,
viii
INTRODUCTION
clearly more was demanded; and hence arose the two chief modifica­
tions in the plan originally proposed. First, no author or date
references are given for the sub-titles. This means that anyone con­
sulting the catalogue may on occasion be referred back from a sub­
title to a main title which belongs to two or more separate plays and
that consequently a further short search may be necessary before the
particular drama concerned is located. Clearly, it would have been
best to make all the references specific: equally clearly, this could not
have been done within reasonable limits-and between a choice of
adopting the present procedure or leaving out the sub-titles altogether
no doubt can be felt which is the preferable. In any case, for the
majority of references no problem arises.
A second modification concerns those many pantomimes which so
actively attracted audiences during the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. Not only were these very numerous, they often indulged in
sprawling titles, such as King Hal the Bluff, Anne Boleyn the Fair; or,
Harlequin Herne the Hunter and the Good Little Fairies of the Silver
Ferns and Harlequin Blue Beard; or, The Red Rover, the Fairy of the
Golden Locks and the Genie of the Magic Key. Because of the number
and length of these titles it was decided that only the main titles
should be recorded except for the pantomimes of the early eighteenth
century, which, as a scrutiny of Weaver's list shows, are often un­
locatable unless we know the alternative names under which they
were performed. Perhaps the loss here is not so serious: after all, the
student is less likely to require the aid of sub-titles in this pantomimic
sphere than when he is dealing with the more formal categories of
plays.
The method followed in the catalogue may be briefly outlined.
With the exceptions noted above, all the entries in the Hand-lists to
the volumes of this series are recorded alphabetically and, save for
pantomimes after '1750, all sub-titles and alternative titles are given
with indications of the main titles to which they belong.
(1) The normal entry presents the short main title with (in brackets) the
author's surname and initials followed by the year, and the appropriate
volume and page references, as in:
Way of the World (Congreve, W., 1700),
I. 74, 190, 193, 236, 242-3, 341, 398;
II. 125, 147
IX
INTRODUCTION
The year date usually is the earliest recorded, whether of production,
publication or submission to the Lord Chamberlain's Office. For a few
plays two dates appear: this indicates that a drama published at a certain
time was not acted until several years later. To save space the various dates
of similarly named pantomimes are given together, not separately. For
plays written by two authors only references to the main entries in the
Hand-lists are given.
(2)
All initial definite and indefinite articles are omitted, except (aw)h en
they form part of a proverb or quotation, as in TheG reatoefsT th ese-an;d
(b)w hen the deliberately archaic 'Ye' is employed, as in YeB atteolfl
BosworFtihe ld.
(3)T he original spelling forms are retained, as in OldB atchelbouut r,
minor variations, such as Busie-Baondd yB usiBeo dya re ignored. When
confusion might arise, cross-references are supplied from the old-spelling
to the modern-spelling forms.
(4) Occasionally plays appear in the Hand-lists twice, once under the
name by which they were performed and once under that by which they
were licensed. In such instances the form used is as in:
Fisherman's Hut (Tobin, J., 1819)=
Fisherman, IV. 413, 46!, 614, 625
Those consulting the catalogue should observe that for some of these
double entries part of the relevant information appears in one Hand-list
entry, part in another. Thus in the example given above, IV. 413 gives the
title under which this melodrama was performed and the date, IV. 461
records the title it had when submitted to the Lord Chamberlain and gives
reference to the manuscript, while IV. 614 gives information concerning
a printed version of the songs included in the production. Entries under
both titles should be consulted.
(5) A + sign before an entry indicates that the play in question does not
appear in the Hand-lists but has been added to this catalogue. Similarly a
+ sign before an author's name or a date draws attention to additional
information incorporated here. Other notes are given in square brackets.
(6) Sub-titles and alternative titles are presented with the symbol =,
followed by the main title to which they belong, as in:
Manoeuvring= Two make a Pair
It should be observed that the = sign may indicate (a)a sub-title (e.g.
'Mayor in aH amper= Peeping Tom' refers to a play entitled PeepiTnogm ;
orT,h eM ayoir na Hamper()b;a) n original title abandoned before produc­
tion (e.g. 'Bertrand and Suzetta=Marriage of Reason' refers to a play
x