Overview

This collection reveals the wide-ranging impact of the Stage Licensing Act of 1737 on literary and theatrical culture in Georgian Britain. Demonstrating the differing motivations of the state in censoring public performances of plays after the Stage Licensing Act of 1737 and until the Theatres Act 1843, chapters cover a wide variety of theatrical genres across a century and show how the mechanisms of formal censorship operated under the Lord Chamberlain's Examiner of Plays. They also explore the effects of informal censorship, whereby playwrights, audiences and managers internalized the censorship regime. As such, the volume moves beyond a narrow focus on erasures and emendations visible on manuscripts to elucidate censorship's wide-ranging significance across the long eighteenth century. Demonstrating theatre archives' potency as a resource for historical research, this volume is of exceptional value for researchers interested in the evolving complexities of Georgian society, its politics and mores.

Full Product Details

Author:   David O'Shaughnessy (University of Galway)
Publisher:   Cambridge University Press
Imprint:   Cambridge University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 16.00cm , Height: 1.90cm , Length: 23.50cm
Weight:   0.549kg
ISBN:  

9781108496254

ISBN 10:   1108496253
Pages:   280
Publication Date:   17 August 2023
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

Introduction: theatre censorship and Georgian cultural history David O'Shaughnessy; Part I. Gender: 1. Censorship as cultural production: the 1752 public entertainments act and Christopher Smart's Old Woman's Oratory Kristina Straub; 2. Damned women, or the disclosures of censorship Daniel O'Quinn; 3. Women writers and censorship in the early nineteenth century Katherine Newey; Part II. Politics: 4. Theatrical censorship and empire Bridget Orr; 5. Adapting Caleb Williams for the stage: the theatrical pale of censorship in Colman's The Iron Chest Lisa A. Freeman; 6. Knave or not? Censoring Thomas Holcroft Julie A. Carlson; Part III. Performance: 7. The censorship of personal satire on the eighteenth-century stage Matthew J. Kinservik; 8. Censoring the unseen: revolution and the aesthetics of theatrical space David Francis Taylor; 9. Evading censorship through comedy, improvisation and non-verbal performance in the early nineteenth century Jim Davis; 10. Censoring regency flash: the melodrama of the Weare-Thurtell murder case, 1823–24 Gillian Russell.

Reviews

'Take a bow. This roll-call of leading scholars in theatre history work as a company to uncover the complex stories of censorship that unfolded after the stage Licensing Act of 1737. They delve into the substantial archives of manuscripts submitted for license to the Lord Chamberlain's office and explore ways of interpreting the record that are of significance for historians not only of literature and theatre, but also of the city, of social class, and of culture. Like all good theatre, this essay collection will have a long life in the memory of its audience and the work that follows it.' Ros Ballaster, University of Oxford 'This exciting collection of essays offers insightful analyses of the impact of the threat and reality of theatrical censorship in the eighteenth-century on writing and performance. Perhaps even more importantly, it models new ways of working with and thinking about theatrical archives such as the Larpent Collection and the Lord Chamberlain's Plays.' Elaine McGirr, University of Bristol

Author Information

David O'Shaughnessy is Professor of Eighteenth-Century Studies at the University of Galway. He is co-editor of The Letters of Oliver Goldsmith (Cambridge University Press, 2018), a general editor of The Collected Works of Oliver Goldsmith (2024-), and Principal Investigator of the European Research Council funded project 'Theatronomics: the business of theatres, 1732-1809'. His website 'The Censorship of British Theatre, 1737-1843' won the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Prize for Digital Resources (2022).

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Countries Available

All regions