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‘And His Works in a Glass Case’: The Bard in the Garden and the Legacy of the Shakespeare Ladies Club

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 August 2021

Emma Smith
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
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Summary

This easily overlooked passage within a somewhat obscure volume describes what may very well be the first private shrine to Shakespeare, an indication of the long-departed playwright’s elevated status in this particular household.

The household in question was that of the 4th Earl of Shaftesbury and his wife, the Countess, Susanna Ashley-Cooper, foundress and leader of the Shakespeare Ladies Club. This group of women, in the late 1730s and through the turn of the decade, was responsible for petitioning and persuading London theatre managers to stage Shakespeare’s plays more frequently and revive many of his dramatic works that had not been performed since the Restoration. Now that the theatre was a commercial venture, no longer sustained by royal patronage, it was common for influential aristocratic persons to request (or ‘bespeak’) performances of particular plays.

Type
Chapter
Information
Shakespeare Survey 74
Shakespeare and Education
, pp. 298 - 316
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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