Description
Book SynopsisFollows the careers of the 18th century’s most influential playwrights, actors, and theatre managers as they vied for control over popular shows. Jane Wessel explores how playwrights and actors developed strategies for owning their works and how, in turn, theatre managers appropriated these strategies, putting pressure on artists to innovate.
Table of Contents
- Contents
- Introduction
- Chapter One
- Charles Macklin and the Turn Away from Print
- Chapter Two
- Samuel Foote’s Strategic Ephemerality
- Chapter Three
- Managerial Interventions: George Colman, Thomas Harris, R.B. Sheridan, and the Practice of Buying Copyrights
- Chapter Four
- Tate Wilkinson’s Re-Performances: Performance as Piracy and Preservation
- Chapter Five
- Printing and Performing Drama in the Final Quarter of the Century: Elizabeth Inchbald and John O’Keeffe
- Epilogue
- Performing Ownership before Parliament: Literary Property and the “Decline of Drama”
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
