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Improving Shakespeare: Some Bibliographical Notes on the Restoration Adaptations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Hazelton Spencer
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Extract

Several bibliographies have been compiled, during the last fifty years, of those altered versions of Shakespeare's plays which form so illuminating a chapter in the history of the Restoration stage, and indeed of the English theatre in general. Unfortunately, the most scholarly of these lists have usually been minor appendices to works of wider scope, and are not unnaturally here and there inaccurate in detail. Perhaps the best is the most recent, Miss Bartlett's, in her handy bibliography, Mr. William Shakespeare; but there is no entirely trustworthy list, since all of them neglect to include at least one important item, the altered Hamlet, and most of them do include several plays which are either not adaptations of Shakespeare or not adaptations at all. I propose, therefore, to supply a more accurate bibliography, preceding it by a list of those now available, and supplementing it with a statement of the reasons for not counting as Shakespeare adaptations certain dramas which have long held their places in this inglorious roll of theatrical ineptitude.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 41 , Issue 3 , September 1926 , pp. 727 - 746
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1926

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References

1 That is, from the reopening of the theatres to the death of Betterton and the establishment of the Cibber-Wilks management. The texts of the versions made during this period are less difficult of access than is commonly supposed. For instance both the Harvard College Library and the Boston Public Library have excellent collections and together a complete one.

2 An adaptation of Measure for Measure, with an infusion of the Benedick-Beatrice plot from Much Ado about Nothing.

3 The quarto of 1673 does not represent D'Avenant‘s version. See my “D'Avenant‘s Macbeth and Shakespeare's,” Pub. Mod. Lang. Ass'n of Am.. XL, 619-644.

4 Probably by D'Avenant. See my “Hamlet under the Restoration,” Pub. Mod. Lang. Ass'n of Am., XXXVIII, 770-791.

5 Strictly speaking, an imitation in another kind, rather than an alteration, of Antony and Cleopatra.

6 A perversion of Romeo and Juliet.

7 Largely based on 2 Henry VI, Acts IV and V, and 3 Henry VI.

8 Largely based on 2 Henry VI, Acts, I. II, and III, and not (as it appears in Jaggard) on 1 Henry VI.

9 An alteration of Cymbeline.

10 An operatic alteration of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

11 An incredibly inept alteration of Twelfth Night.

12 Mr. William Shakespeare, p. 71. Capt. Jaggard also lists the play as an alteration (Shakespeare Bibliography, p. 370).

13 This edition may have escaped Professor Odell's notice, or perhaps his printer errs in specifying 1677 (Shakespeare from Betterton to Irving, I, 43); I should of course assume the latter to be the case were it not that Professor Odell appears to suppose that the play was printed some years after its production. The catalogue of the British Museum lists editions in 1667 and 1674; Capt. Jaggard gives only 1667.

14 Langbaine, An Account of the English Dramatick Poets (1691), p. 530; Langbaine-Gildon, The Lives and Characters of the English Dramatick Poets (c. 1699), p. 160.

15 John Downes, Roscius Anglicanus (Knight's ed.), p. 27.

16 Allardyce Nicoll, Times Literary Supplement, Sept. 14, 1922, p. 584. Also his Restoration Drama, p. 308.

17 “Moll” Davis, Nelly Gwyn's rival as dancer and as mistress of Charles II.

18 Nor was any separate edition published during this period.

19 Genest, Some Account of the English Stage, II, 214.

20 Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery, The History of Henry the Fifth, London, 1672.

21 Capt. Jaggard, for instance, lists it, like the adaptations, among the regular editions of the play.

22 Downes, p. 23.

23 Genest, I, 357.

24 Downes p. 37.

25 Genest, II, 274.

26 Genest, II, 340.

27 John Downes, Roscuis Anglicanus, ed. 1789, p. 47.

28 Gerard Langbaine, An Account of the English Dramatick Poets (1691), p. 7. For a list of Banks's plays consult Mr. Allardyce Nicoll's invaluable “Hand-list of Restoration Plays,” in his Restoration Drama, p. 352.

29 Camb. Hist. Eng. Lit., VIII, 194.

30 Camb. Hist. Eng. Lit., VIII, 139.

31 Miss Bartlett includes it in her bibliography of adaptations, although she notes correctly that it is an original play. (Mr. William Shakspeare, p. 74.) Capt. Jaggard describes it as “founded on Shakespeare,” Bibliography, p. 282.

32 This date was discovered by Mr. Allardyce Nicoll in a list of plays in the lord chamberlain's records. (See his Dryden as an Adapter of Shakespeare, p. 34). See Term Catalogue, May, 1677, (Arber's ed., I, 273.)

33 Genest, I, 208.

34 Sedley's play was reprinted, with some additions and the change of the villain's name from Photinus to Achillas, in the 1702 edition of Sedley's Miscellaneous Works, under the title: “Beauty the Conquerour: Or, the Death of Mark Antony. A Tragedy. In imitation of the Roman way of Writing. Written by Sir Charles Sedley, Baronet. Never before printed. London: Printed and Sold by John Nutt, near Stationers-Hall. 1702.”

35 King Henry the Fourth was probably the third Restoration revival of Shakespeare, having been preceded by Pericles and Othello. The Revels list of Sir Henry Herbert contains the item “Henry the Fourthe. First Play acted at the New Theatre.” (Adams, J. Q., The Dramatic Records of Sir Henry Herbert, p. 116.) This, it is clear from the context, was Killigrew's house in Vere Street, Clare Market. Pepys saw the play there on December 31, 1660, but was not pleased with it, perhaps as he says because he had the book. On June 4, 1661 he saw it again, and curtly pronounces it “a good play.”

King Henry the Fourth appears in Downes's Roscius Anglicanus twelfth (incorrectly numbered XIII) on the list of “Principal Old Stock Plays” acted by the members of the Theatre Royal 1663-1682; the actors named are Wintersel as the King; Burt, the Prince; Hart, Hotspur; Cartwright, Falstaff; Shattered Poins. Pepys saw the play three times at Drury Lane: Nov. 2, 1667, Jan. 7, 1668, and Sept. 18, 1668. Our only clue to which Part he saw comes in his entry for Nov. 2, 1667: “To the King's playhouse, and there saw Henry the Fourth; and contrary to expectation, was pleased in nothing more than in Cartwright's speaking of Falstaff's speech about ‘What is Honour?‘ ” This famous passage occurs in V i of Part One. Since there is nothing in Pepys's other references to indicate that he saw a different play, and from the absence of other records of performances, it seems probable that only Part One was acted during this period.

What the text was we do not know; probably it was one of the later quartos. No Restoration separate edition was printed till 1700, and this text represents the Bettertonian stage version. We are warranted therefore in asserting that the stage version of the old Theatre Royal was probably not an alteration.

36 Cf. Genest, II, 219 ff.

37 Besides the edition of 1700 Jaggard lists one c. 1710, but fails to locate any copy. Wheatley lists only 1700.

38 The adapter follows the text of the folios, not of the quarto of 1600. This aberration from the normal practice of the Restoration reworkers may be explained by the relatively archaic condition of the old quarto. The editor of The Sequel is almost invariably faithful to his source except for occasional modernizations. Walter Wrage (Englische Bühnenbearleitungen von Shakespeares “King Henry IV. Part I,” Hamburg, 1910, p. 32) is positive that the source is F 4.

39 Quoting Sir Sidney Lee's facsimile of F 1.

40 Q c. 1719, p. 52.

41 Genest, II, 317.

42 Genest, II, 326.

43 Genest, II, 357.

44 Genest, II, 392.

45 Genest, II, 409. Genest suggests that this performance was probably not given, since the playhouse was closed by the death of Prince George of Denmark.

46 N. Y. Times Book Review and Magazine, May 21, 1922, p. 9.