Shipwrecks, Sorcerers and Women Who Dared: Selections from the Lord Chamberlain’s Plays of the 1850s
Many years ago I worked as the postdoctoral research assistant on Jacky Bratton’s AHRC-funded project to catalogue thousands of plays sent to the Lord Chamberlain’s Office for licensing in the mid-Victorian period. The intention was to unearth the project’s namesake ‘Buried Treasures’ for contemporary study and enjoyment. Not long into the project, it became clear that cataloging was only a first step—a rather dry one. These plays needed to be resurrected and brought to life, hence the decision to publish editions of some of the most engaging ones.
At that time, publishing online was novel, especially for academia. Online only publishing was rare and the texts we were working with presented unusual challenges. These manuscripts varied wildly in terms of completeness, presentation and readability due to the vagaries of Victorian handwriting and theatre copying practices. We gathered resources, invited friends and ran workshops with a list of interested scholars. These days were some of the most enjoyable of my academic career and they certainly brightened the dark corridors of the British Library for me. This work resulted in what was then called the Electronic Editions of the Lord Chamberlain’s Plays, 1852-1863.
We never made it past the 1850s, but the plays published here are representative of the diversity of purpose and style that can be found in the larger collection. Some were likely transcriptions made for the purpose of licensing. Others were sent straight from the theatre to the Lord Chamberlain’s office and must have originally been used for some other reason: extra or superseded copies or scripts for prompting. We were and still are excited about the potential of these texts to offer up new ideas about dramatic writing, copying and editing. There is much they might teach us about management, production and performance in the mid-Victorian period as well.
Not long into this project, we made the bold editorial decision to adopt no uniform style. Instead, we have simply set out to reproduce what appears on each page of the manuscript. Therefore in each edition, the editor explains the state and appearance of the text that has been transcribed as well as the editorial decisions this has necessitated. Each editor also provides a contextual introduction and all necessary explanatory notes on the plays themselves.
We hope you enjoy reading and working with these texts as much as we did. Please contact us with any questions or comments.
Laurie Garrison
General Editor
An historical, musical & illustrative Lecture, entitled, Leaves from the Life! and Lays from the Lyre! of William Shakespere!
Edited by Rhian Williams
Leaves from the Life! and Lays from the Lyre! of William Shakespeare! is an unusual Victorian artefact, being the script for an ‘illustrated lecture’ held at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre in March 1853. This lightly comic piece celebrates minor characters from Shakespeare’s comedies and featured performances of several Shakespearean and traditional English songs. Likely devised in collaboration with the recognised theatre director and Shakespeare scholar, Samuel Phelps, this lecture has vibrant things to tell us about how Victorian theatre was evolving with the tastes of the growing suburban classes.
The Loves of Arcadia by Miss Braddon.
Edited by Laurie Garrison
The Loves of Arcadia is a light historical comedy set during the reign of Louis XV. Written by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, better known as one of the major sensation novelists of the 1860s, The Loves of Arcadia showcases Braddon’s penchant for undermining moral convention with ample racy allusions throughout the text. However, the modern reader should be warned that there is an offensive, though brief, representation of a black character as well as derogatory remarks about a minor character’s weight.
Winning the Widow. Interlude in 1 Act
Edited by Gilli Bush-Bailey
Winning the Widow is a one act farcical comedy by Lucy Newbery that offers the modern reader a fascinating glimpse of the intertheatricality that was common on the Victorian stage. Newbery references writing and performances by Maria Theresa de Camp (later Mrs Charles Kemble) and Fanny Kelly in this sketch of amusing misunderstandings amongst lovers.