The Publication of Plays in London 1660-1800 Playwrights, Publishers and the Market

A great deal of bibliographical and historical scholarship has been devoted to English drama up to 1660, but late 17th-century plays have received little such attention, and 18th-century plays hardly any at all. This ground-breaking study by two internationally renowned scholars in theater history addresses such fundamental questions as: who published plays? What was the cost of publication, the risk, and the potential profit? What did single plays cost, and what did play collections cost? What was the buying power of those prices, and who could afford to make such purchases? How much market existed for used copies and at what prices? What did playwrights earn from publication, and how important was it to their income? What was the commercial logic of various sorts of collections? What was the function of illustrations in published plays, and what can we learn from such illustrations? This study, a significantly expanded version of the Panizzi Lectures delivered by the authors at the British Library in 2011, will become a cornerstone work in the field and lays the groundwork for a generation of further scholarship.

Judith Milhous is Lucille Lortel Distinguished Professor Emerita in Theatre at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Her many publications include the two-volume co-authored history Italian Opera in Late Eighteenth-Century London. Robert D. Hume is Evan Pugh Professor of English Literature at Penn State University. He is the author and editor of many works on English theatre and opera, including most recently the first scholarly edition of the Plays, Poems, and Miscellaneous Writings Associated with George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham.