Collection Summary
Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin
Drury Lane (London,
England)
Drury Lane Theatre Promptbooks
Collection
1718-1787
1 box (0.42 linear feet)
The Drury Lane Theatre Promptbooks
Collection consists of one box of nine printed scripts with extensive handwritten
promptbook notations from productions at the Drury Lane Theatre from 1718 through
1787.
English
Performing Arts Collection
PA-00356
Acquisition:
Purchase, 1964
Access:
Open for research
Processed by:
Eric Colleary, 2016
Scope and Contents
The nine Drury Lane promptbooks in this collection were originally in the possession
of H.C. Halliwell-Phillips, who transferred ownership to the Penzance Library in
Cornwall. They, in turn, sold the promptbooks at auction in 1964. The promptbooks
all use published scripts and include handwritten notations from at least five
different prompters – John Stede, William Rufus Chetwood, William Hopkins, Richard
Cross, and James Wrighten. Production dates for the promptbooks range from 1718 to
1787. It is believed that the promptbook for Dryden’s
Oedipus was also used at Covent Garden for their 1735 production.
Several of the promptbooks were studied in the 1980s by professors Leo Hughes and
A.H. Scouten. Their research was included in Edward A. Langhans’
Eighteenth Century British and Irish Promptbooks: A Descriptive
Bibliography (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987).
The promptbooks described in this finding aid are also described individually in the
University of Texas Library Catalog.
Two other Drury Lane promptbooks from the Penzance Library in Cornwall were sold to
the University of Edinburgh in 1964 - Congreve’s
The Old
Bachelor and The Double Dealer. See
Hughes and Scouten’s Congreve at the Drury Lane: Two
Eighteenth-Century Promptbooks in Modern
Philology, vol 79, no 2 (November, 1981), pp. 146-156.
The Ransom Center has an extensive collection of other promptbooks in the Playscripts
and Promptbooks Collection, as well as early printed plays in the general library
holdings. Playbills from the Drury Lane dating from 1703 to 1899 (bulk 1795-1840)
are located in in the London Playbills Collection, and materials relating to the
physical Drury Lane building are present in the Theater Buildings Collection. The
Ransom Center has Drury Lane actor-manager David Garrick’s 1751 travel diary to
Paris. David Garrick and Eva Maria Violette Garrick correspondence, prints, and
clippings are located in in the Center’s Theater Arts Manuscripts collection and the
Theater Biography Collection. The Book Collection has two volumes formerly belonging
to the library of David Garrick –
Oeuvres de M. de
Voltaire (1775) and Aphra Behn’s Love-letters
between a nobleman and his sister (1708).
Index Terms
People
Baker, Thomas, active
1700-1709.
Beaumont, Francis,
1584-1616.
Chetwood, William Rufus,
-1766.
Cibber, Colley, 1671-1757.
Cross, Richard, -1760.
Dryden, John, 1631-1700.
d’Urfey, Thomas, 1653-1723.
Fletcher, John, 1579-1625.
Garrick, David, 1717-1779.
Hopkins, William, -1780.
Lee, Nathaniel, 1653?-1692.
Massinger, Philip,
1583-1640.
Shadwell, Thomas,
1642-1692.
Southerne, Thomas,
1660-1746.
Stede, John, 1687-1768.
Wrighten, James, 1744 or
5-1793.
Organizations
Drury Lane (London,
England).
Covent Garden Theatre.
Container List
Promptbooks, 1718-1787
Baker, Thomas. Tunbridge Walks: or the Yeoman of Kent. London:
Printed for Bernard Lintott, at the Middle Temple-Gate, Fleet Street,
1703.
1.1
Beaumont, Francis, John Fletcher and Philip Massinger. The Royal
Merchant: or, Beggars Bush [no title page]. London: 1706.
1.2
Cibber, Colley and John Dryden. The Comical Lovers: A Comedy.
London: Printed for Bernard Lintott at the Cross Keys, between the two
Temple-Gates, in Fleet Street, 1707.
1.3
Dryden, John. Don Sebastian, King of Portugal [no title page]. London: 1690.
1.4
Dryden, John and Nathaniel Lee. Oedipus: A Tragedy. London:
Printed for Richard Bentley in Russel-Street in Convent-Garden,
1682.
1.5
d’Urfey, Thomas. Love for Money, or, The Boarding School. London:
Printed for A. Roper and E. Wilkinson at the Black-Boy in Fleet-Street,
1696.
1.6
Fletcher, John and John Dryden. The Pilgrim: A Comedy. London:
Printed for Benjamin Took, near the Middle-Temple Gate, in Fleet-Street,
1700.
1.7
Shadwell, Thomas. The Squire of Alsatia: A Comedy. London:
Printed for James Knapton at the Crown in St Pauls Church-yard,
1699.
1.8
Southerne, Thomas. Oroonoko: A Tragedy. London: Printed for H.
Playford in the Temple-Change, B. Tooke at the Middle-Temple-Gate, and
S. Buckley at the Dolphin against St. Dunstan’s Church in Fleet-Street,
1696.
1.9