Subjects
Lives of Shakespearian Actors, Part II:
Edmund Kean, Sarah Siddons and Harriet Smithson by their Contemporaries
Series Editor: Gail Marshall
Consulting Editor: Tetsuo Kishi
Volume Editors: Jim Davis, Lisa A Freeman and Peter Raby
Lives of Shakespearian Actors
978 1 85196 852 7: 234x156mm: £275.00/$495.00
Availability: Japan: Eureka Press
This series features actors who were significant in their development of new and innovative ways of performing Shakespeare. Extracts from diaries, memoirs, private letters, obituaries and other rare ephemera are drawn together to build a contemporary account of their acting achievements and personal lives.
Edmund Kean has been considered one of the greatest actors to have taken to the stage. His debut at Drury Lane brought the theatre renewed popularity and rescued it from near bankruptcy. He specialized in tragic roles which brought him success on both the English and American stage. Sarah Siddon was famed for her consummate performance of Lady Macbeth. Her achievements include bringing a new standard of performative realism to the stage. Harriet Smithson was best known for her Parisian performances. Her success brought greater attention to the role of women on the Shakespearian stage. Between them these actors helped to make the stage a more respectable profession.
This edition draws together a carefully-edited selection of the actors’ own words with those of their contemporaries and critics. Texts are presented in digitally-enhanced facsimile and are supported by extensive new editorial material including a general introduction, volume introductions, headnotes, endnotes, a bibliography, a chronology and a consolidated index.
This broadly interdisciplinary edition will interest scholars undertaking research in Shakespearian Studies, History of the Theatre and Performance and Eighteenth-Century Studies.
- Makes available a comprehensive selection of rare and difficult-to-access contemporary texts on the reception and reputation of three key eighteenth-century Shakespearian actors
- Enables consideration of key points of English acting style, performance and tradition on the Shakespearian stage
- Each facsimile page is digitally cleaned and enhanced, significantly improving on the quality and legibility of the original
Sample pages
- Lives of Actors II, Volume 1: Sample pages
- Lives of Actors II, Volume 2: Sample pages
- Lives of Actors II, Volume 3: Sample pages
Contents
Volume 1: Edmund Kean
Early Critical Accounts of Kean: [John William Cole], The Talents of Edmund Kean Delineated (1817); John Finlay, Miscellanies (1835). Kean’s Biographers on Kean in Shakespeare: Barry Waller Procter (Barry Corwall), The Life of Edmund Kean (1835); Frederick Hawkins, The Life of Edmund Kean (1869). Actors on Kean: Michael Kelly, Reminiscences (1826); Julian Charles Young, A Memoir of Charles Mayne Young, Tragedian (1871); William Macready, Macready’s Reminiscences, ed. Sir Frederick Pollock (1875); Joe Cowell, Thirty Years Passed Among the Players in England and America (1845); Walter Donaldson, Fifty Years of Green-Room Gossip (1881); George Vandenhoff, Dramatic Reminiscences: An Actor’s Notebook (1865); Fanny Kemble, Records of a Girlhood (1880); Fanny Kemble, Journal of a Residence in America (1835); Sir Theodore Martin, Helena Faucit (Lady Martin) (1900). Dramatists on Kean: Thomas Dibdin, Reminiscences (1827); Frederick Reynolds, The Life and Times of Frederick Reynolds (1826); Thomas Colley Grattan, Beaten Paths and Those Who Trod Them (1862). Recollections of Kean in Theatrical Memoirs: Alfred Bunn, The Stage Both Before and Behind the Curtain (1840); George Raymond, The Life and Enterprises of Robert William Elliston, Comedian (1857); James Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble (1825); John W Cole, The Life and Theatrical Times of Charles Kean (1859); Edward Stirling, Old Drury Lane: Fifty Years’ Recollections of Author, Actor and Manager (1881). Diarists, Literary and Artistic Figures on Kean: Thomas Moore, Life of Lord Byron with his Journals and Letters (1854); Thomas Moore, Memoirs, Journal and Correspondence, ed. Lord John Russell (1853–6); Henry Nelson Coleridge, Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1836); Diary, Reminiscences and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson, ed. Thomas Sadler (1869); The London Theatre 1811–1866: Selections from the Diary of Henry Crabb Robinson, ed. Eluned Brown (1966); Mary and Charles Cowden Clarke, Recollections of Writers (1878); Joseph Farington, The Farington Diaries (1922–8); Pierre M Irving, The Works of Washington Irving ([1900?]); Charles Robert Leslie, Autobiographical Recollections (1860); Mrs Richard Trench, The Remains of the Late Mrs Richard Trench (1862); Hester L Thrale, Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs Piozzi (Thrale), ed. Abraham Hayward (1861); Mary Berry, Extracts from the Journals and Correspondence of Miss Berry, 1783 to 1852, ed. Lady T Lewis (1866). North American Perspectives: Richard Henry Dana, The Idle Man (1821–2); William W Clapp Jnr, A Record of the Boston Stage (1853); Joe Cowell, Thirty Years Passed Among the Players in England and America (1845). Kean’s Acting: John Genest, Some Account of the English Stage (1832); John Taylor, Records of My Life (1833); William Robson, The Old Play-Goer (1846); George Henry Lewes, On Actors and the Art of Acting (1875). Kean Close-Up: James Winston, Drury Lane Journal: Selections from James Winston’s Diaries 1819–1827, ed. Alfred L Nelson and Gilbert B Cross (1974); Oxberry’s Dramatic Biography and Histrionic Anecdotes (1825). Newspaper and Journal Reviews: William Hazlitt – William Hazlitt, A View of the English Stage (1818); Examiner, 7 January 1816; The Times, 21 October 1817; London Magazine (January 1820); London Magazine (February 1820). Leigh Hunt – Examiner, 26 February 1815; Examiner, 30 April 1820; Dramatic Essays by Leigh Hunt, ed. William Archer and Robert W Lowe (1894). John Keats, in Champion, 21 December 1817; Thomas Noon Talfourd, in New Monthly Magazine (March 1831); Miscellaneous Criticism – Morning Post, 27 January 1814; Examiner, 27 February 1814; Examiner, 18 September 1814; Morning Herald, 14 March 1814; Morning Herald, 9 May 1814; Theatrical Inquisitor (February 1814); Theatrical Inquisitor (October 1816); Theatrical Inquisitor (October 1817); Theatrical Inquisitor (October 1818); Theatrical Inquisitor (January 1820); Theatrical Inquisitor (May 1820); London Magazine (January 1823). Decline, Last Appearance and Obituaries: Dr John Doran, ‘Their Majesties Servants’ or Annals of the English Stage (1897); James H Hackett, in New York Mirror, 22 February 1834; New Monthly Magazine (June 1833).
Volume 2: Sarah Siddons
Poems and Poetic Tributes: Thomas Sedgwick Whalley, Verses Addressed to Mrs. Siddons, on Her Being Engaged at the Theatre-Royal (1782); William Russell, The Tragic Muse: A Poem Addressed to Mrs. Siddons (1783); The Theatrical Portrait, a Poem, on the Celebrated Mrs. Siddons (1783); Thomas Young, The Siddoniad: A Characteristical and Critical Poem (1784); [James Henry Leigh], The New Rosciad in the Manner of Churchill (1787); Joanna Baillie, ‘To Mrs. Siddons’, in Joanna Baillie (ed.), A Collection of Poems (1823). Biographies and Stage Histories: Thomas Davies, Dramatic Miscellanies (1785); [Joseph Haselwood], The Secret History of the Green Room (1795); James Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of John Philip Kemble (1825); James Boaden, Memoirs of Mrs. Siddons (1827); James Boaden, Memoirs of Mrs. Inchbald (1833); Thomas Campbell, Life of Mrs. Siddons (1834); Percy Fitzgerald, The Kembles (1871); Essays and Essayists: The Beauties of Mrs. Siddons (1786); Edwin’s Pills to Purge Melancholy (1788); James Ballantyne, Dramatic Characters of Mrs. Siddons (1812); William Hazlitt, A View of the English Stage (1821); George Joseph Bell, ‘Mrs. Siddons as Lady Macbeth’, Nineteenth Century (1878). Letters, Diaries and Memoirs: Catherine Galindo, Mrs. Galindo’s Letter to Mrs. Siddons (1809); Frances Burney, Diary and Letters of Madame D’Arblay (1842–6); Frances Ann Kemble, Record of a Girlhood (1821); Oswald G Knapp (ed.), An Artist’s Love Story (1905). Periodicals: ‘Drury-Lane Theatre’, Morning Post and Daily Advertiser, 3 February 1785; ‘The Stage’, Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser, 14 February 1785; ‘Mrs. Siddons’, Morning Chronicle, 1 July 1812.
Volume 3: Harriet Smithson
Early Reviews: Oxberry’s Dramatic Biography and Histrionic Anecdotes, ed. C E Oxberry (1825–6); The Times, 21 January 1818; Bell’s Weekly Messenger, 18 November 1821; The Times, 1 February 1825. Reception in Paris: Walter Donaldson, Fifty Years of Green-Room Gossip, or Recollections of an Actor ([1881]); Etienne-Jean Delécluze, Journal de Delécluze, 1824–1828, ed. R Baschet ([1948]), trans. Peter Raby; Charles Magnin, Causeries et meditations historiques et littéraires (1843), trans. Peter Raby; [Hector Berlioz], ‘Tragic One-Act Pantomime by M. Henri, Music by M. Pugni’, Gazette Musicale, 7 December 1834, trans. Peter Raby; Alexandre Dumas, The Memoirs of Alexandre Dumas, père, trans. A F Davidson (1891); Alexandre Dumas, Impressions de Voyage, Suisse (1851), trans. Peter Raby; F-J Moreau, Souvenirs du théâtre anglais à Paris (1827); François Guizot, Shakespeare and His Times (1852); Harriet (Cavendish) Leveson-Gower, Countess Granville, Letters of Harriet, Countess of Granville, 1810–1894, ed. F Leveson-Gower (1894); Frances Anne Kemble, Record of a Girlhood (1878); Hector Berlioz, Autobiography of Hector Berlioz, trans. R Holmes and E Holmes (1884). The Established Actress: Athenaeum (23 April 1828); Athenaeum (28 May 1828); William C Macready, Reminiscences, ed. F Pollock (1875); New Monthly Magazine (June 1828); Dramatic Magazine, 11 May 1829; Athenaeum (13 May 1829); Examiner, 17 May 1829; Examiner, 24 May 1829; New Monthly Magazine, 1 June 1829; Examiner, 14 June 1829; New Monthly Magazine, 1 July 1829; Athenaeum (29 May 1830); Edward Lockspeiser, ‘Unpublished Letters of Harriet Smithson and Berlioz’, Musical Times, December 1938; Henry Barton Baker, The London Stage (1904); Letter from Harriet Smithson to William Kenneth (1831); Court Magazine (1833); Hector Berlioz, Autobiography of Hector Berlioz, trans. R Holmes and E Holmes. Final Years and Retrospective: Mrs Cornwall Baron Wilson, Our Actresses (1844); George A Osborne, ‘Berlioz’, Proceedings of the Musical Association (3 February 1879); E P Dutton Cook, ‘Miss Smithson’, Gentleman’s Magazine (June 1879); Hector Berlioz, Autobiography of Hector Berlioz; Images of Smithson: F-J Moreau, Souvenirs du theatre anglais a Paris (1827).