The Performing Century: Nineteenth-Century Theatre's History

Published in association with the Huntington Library, Redefining British Theatre History is a five-volume series under the general editorship of Peter Holland. The series brings together major practitioners in theatre history in order to establish ways in which previous assumptions need fundamental questioning and to initiate new directions for the field. The series aims to establish a new future for theatre history, not least by making theatre historians aware of their own history, current practice and future.

In this final volume of the Redefining British Theatre History series, an innovative and wide-ranging collection of essays brings together leading scholars from Britain and America. The Performing Century looks at modes of performance and forms of theatre in nineteenth-century Britain and Ireland, placing drama and performance in the social and cultural contexts of the rapid transformations in nineteenth-century society. From the vogue for fairy plays to the acting styles of melodrama, from the work of the impresario George Edwardes to the solo comic performances of Charles Mathews, from launching ships in Belfast to royal weddings in England, from the representation of economics in drama to the work of a parliamentary committee in regulating theatres, from the Boxing Day audiences for pantomimes to the nature of circus, the authors bring new perspectives to bear on familiar material and radically redefine the meaning of theatre and performance in the nineteenth century.