Research Catalog

British theater clippings and ephemera.

Title: British theater clippings and ephemera.
Publication: 1814-1822.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request Appointment Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Performing Arts Research Collections to submit a request in person.	Mixed material	Supervised use	MWEZ+ n.c. 5707	Performing Arts Research Collections - Theatre

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Additional Authors

Description

.42 linear feet (1 box)

Summary

Seven envelopes and five folders of clippings, with partial issues of periodicals and newspapers, collected by Hiram Stead documenting theater, opera, oratorio, and some pantomime, mainly in London but also elsewhere in England, from 1814 to 1816 and 1821 to 1822, with some mention of theater in Dublin, Paris, and Brussels. The bulk of the material is composed of announcements, essays, reviews, stage gossip, and news stories about theatrical activities and performances at the Theatres Royal Haymarket, Covent Garden and Drury Lane.

Donor/Sponsor

In honor of George Freedley

Subject

Genre/Form

Clippings.
Printed ephemera.

Note

While a number of publications are represented, including Bell's Weekly Messenger, The Courier, John Bull, The Mirror of the Stage, and The Theatrical Inquisitor, a significant portion of the clippings are taken from The Examiner, published by Leigh and John Hunt, and most likely contain unattributed pieces by Leigh, Robert and John Hunt, Lord Byron, William Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, and other writers of this milieu.
Also included are news stories and anecdotes about events and people of the day, often in a theatrical context, including George IV and the social activities of the British aristocracy and royal family, especially Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales; Napoleon Bonaparte, the progress of the Napoleonic Wars, and the public acclamation of the Duke of Wellington during his attendance of performances after the Battle of Waterloo; the deaths of Caroline of Brunswick, Princess Charlotte Augusta, Henry Siddons, and Richard Brinsley Sheridan; the trial of George Barnett who shot at the actress Frances Maria Kelly from the pit of the Drury Lane Theatre; the bloodless duel between the Duke of Bedford and the Duke of Buckingham; the execution of the will of Eva Marie Veigel, the dancer who was the widow of David Garrick; and, in Ireland, sectarian disturbances by the Orange Order during a performance of Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer (known as The Bottle Riot) and a localized but significant failure of a potato crop prior to the Great Famine. Among many individuals mentioned are Mrs. Inchbald; Thomas John Dibdin, the playwright who was then prompter at the Drury Lane; the Irish transgender actress Miss Walstein (who also used the surname Edwards and the given names Eliza and Lavinia); Miss Elizabeth O'Neill; Edmund Kean; and the Italian opera singer Angelica Catalani.
Envelope 1 contains notices of performances of Beethoven's Mount of Olives oratorio (Christus am Ölberge, Op. 85) at the Drury Lane, 1814. Notices about performances of Handel's Messiah are scattered throughout this collection.
Folder 2 contains the first appearances in print of Lord Byron's poems, Bright be the place of thy soul, from the Hebrew melodies (2 copies/2 leaves), and Farewell to the land where the gloom of my glory arose, known as Napoleon's farewell (1 copy/1 leaf), as published June 11 and July 30, 1815, respectively, in The Examiner. William Hazlitt's full essay about the Covent Garden production of Milton's Comus, with Mr. Conway, follows Byron's Bright be the place of thy soul.
Folder 3 contains Leigh Hunt's poems Serenade and The simile of a beautiful night, as published in The Examiner, June 16, 1816, on the verso of which is most of William Hazlitt's essay, Mrs. Siddons, a review of her post-retirement performance with John Philip Kemble in Macbeth, Covent Garden, June 14, 1816.

Source (note)

Forms part of the Hiram Stead collection, *T-Mss 1933-001.

Call Number

MWEZ+ n.c. 5707

OCLC

1038784506

Title

British theater clippings and ephemera.

Publisher

1814-1822.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

sheet

Biography

Collector and theater-goer Stead travelled through Great Britain collecting playbills, programs and other ephemera to document British theater history.

Local Note

The rag content paper is in generally very good condition except for fire damage on some pages and stains, presumably wine or blood, on others.

Source

Forms part of the Hiram Stead collection, *T-Mss 1933-001.

Connect to:

Request Access to Theatre Division Special Collections material

Added Author

Stead, Hiram, collector.

Hunt, Leigh, 1784-1859, publisher.

Hunt, John, 1775-1848, publisher.

Hunt, Robert, approximately 1774-1850.

Hazlitt, William, 1778-1830.

Lamb, Charles, 1775-1834.

Milton, John, 1608-1674. Comus.

Conway, William Augustus, 1789-1828, actor.

Handel, George Frideric, 1685-1759, composer. Messiah.

Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827, composer. Christus am Ölberge.

Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, 1788-1824.

George IV, King of Great Britain, 1762-1830.

Charlotte Augusta, Princess of Great Britain, 1796-1817.

Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821.

Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of, 1769-1852.

Caroline, Queen, consort of George IV, King of Great Britain, 1768-1821.

Siddons, Henry, 1774-1815, actor.

Siddons, Sarah, 1755-1831, actor.

Kemble, John Philip, 1757-1823, actor.

Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616. Macbeth.

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 1751-1816.

Kelly, Frances Maria, 1790-1882, actor.

Garrick, Eva Maria, 1724-1822, dancer.

Goldsmith, Oliver, 1730?-1774. She stoops to conquer.

Inchbald, Mrs., 1753-1821.

Dibdin, Thomas, 1771-1841, production personnel.

Walstein, Eliza, -1833, actor.

O'Neill, Eliza, 1791-1872, actor.

Kean, Edmund, 1787-1833, actor.

Catalani, Angelica, 1780-1849, performer.

Research Call Number

MWEZ+ n.c. 5707

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