New E-resources: Eighteenth Century Drama and Shakespeare in Performance

Bodleian Libraries has recently made a significant purchase of e-resources.

The Libraries have committed substantial external funding to a one-off set of purchases of electronic research resources deemed to be important to researchers in the University.  This follows a project to identify desiderata across all subjects and to list suggestions from readers. The recent purchase was a group of resources from Adam Matthew Digital, including Eighteenth Century Drama and Shakespeare in Performance, among others.

Eighteenth-Century Drama

18th Century Drama

Eighteenth Century Drama features the John Larpent Collection from the Huntingdon Library – a unique archive of almost every play submitted for licence between 1737 and 1824. Larpent was the Lord Chamberlain’s ‘Inspector of Plays’ and responsible for executing the Lisensing Act of 1737, which required the Lord Chamberlain’s Office to approve any play before it was staged. Larpent preserved the original submissions, over 2,500 of which are presented in this resource.

Also included are the diaries of Larpent’s wife and professional collaborator Anna, recording her criticism of plays, as well as insights into theatrical culture and English society. Hundreds of further documents including playbills, theatre records and correspondence also feature, including papers and correspondence of David Garrick, Edmund Kean, Sarah Siddons, among others.

The primary source content is supported by two key reference works for theatre history: The London Stage 1660-1800 and A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers & Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800.

 

 Shakespeare in Performance

Shakespeare in PerformanceThis resource features the world-famous prompt book collection at the Folger Shakespeare Library, with prompt books for over 90% of Shakespeare’s plays, covering the period from the 1670s to 1970s (the majority are nineteenth century). These include editions owned by notable actors and directors such as Charles and John Philip Kemble, Henry Irving, Ellen Terry and Laurence Olivier. Performances of particular cultural importance have been selected as case studies, including David Garrick’s revised 1772 production of Hamlet, Henry Irving’s famous 1879 production of The Merchant of Venice, and Laurence Olivier’s Academy Award-winning cinema release of Hamlet in 1948.

Features of the resources include:

  • Ability to compare prompt books alongside each other;
    • Documents are indexed by play, country of performance, theatre, associated names, and other key search terms;
    • Full-text searchability.

 

In addition, the following resources were also purchased:

East India Company archives, modules 1-3;

Foreign Office Files for China, 1919-1980;

Foreign Office Files for the Middle East, 1971-81;

Women in the National Archives – an online finding aid for women’s studies resources in The National Archives, Kew, covering 1559-1995. It also gives access to early 20th century original documents on the Suffrage Question in Britain, the Empire and Colonial Territories.

You can find all of these resources via SOLO and the Databases A-Z platform, as well via the direct links above.

 

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