THAR 102.401: Theatre, History, Culture II: Romantics, Realist and Revolutionaries : Home

Contains approximately 1,462 plays by 233 playwrights, together with detailed, fielded information on related productions, theaters, production companies, and more. The database also includes selected playbills, production photographs and other ephemera related to the plays. Some 600 of the plays are published here for the first time, including a number by major authors.

Eighteenth Century Drama features the John Larpent Collection from the Huntington Library – a unique archive of almost every play submitted for licence between 1737 and 1824, as well as hundreds of documents that provide social context for the plays. Also included are the papers of prominent theatrical figures of the period, including correspondence, financial documents, and portraits.

This collection offers unique insights into the changing nature of everyday life in Britain in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th-centuries. Categories include 19th-century entertainment, the booktrade, popular prints, crimes, murders and executions, and advertising.

The primary sources in this module not only celebrate well-known and popular forms of entertainment [such as variety, vaudeville and theater] but also highlights lesser-known activities and leisure interests. Advertising posters, guidebooks, admission tickets and handbills represent the diverse forms of entertainment available to growing numbers of people from the late Georgian period and throughout the Victorian and Edwardian era. ...Highlights from the collection include a set of early pantomime programmes; unique material from the May Moore Duprez archive; and visual material related to Belle Vue, Manchester's popular Zoological Gardens.