Dedication
TO
BRANDER MATTHEWS
THESE
The Argument
This book, as its name implies, is a series of chapters from the annals of the American Theatre; and it considers Plays and Players more particularly in their less familiar aspects. It does not pretend to be critical; and the greatest care has been taken to verify all the facts it contains (many of them here presented for the first time), in order that it may appeal to the small but select band of specialists known as Dramatic Collectors, as well as to those influential members of the community who are glad to call themselves Old Play-goers.
The chapters upon “The American Stage Negro,” upon “The American Burlesque,” and upon a “A Century of American Hamlets,” appeared originally in Harper’s Magazine; the others have been printed, in part, in other periodicals, but as now published they have all been rewritten, elaborated, and extended.
The portraits with which the volume is enriched are in many instances very rare, and some of them, never engraved before, have been prepared especially for this work. They are from the collections of Mr. J. H. V. Arnold, Dr. B. E. Martin, Mr. Thomas J. McKee, Mr. C. C. Moreau, Mr. Evart Jansen Wendell, and The Players, to all of whom the author here expresses his sincere thanks.
A double Index—personal as well as local—makes the book easily available for reference; and it will lend itself readily to extra illustration. It is intended to instruct as well as to entertain.
Laurence Hutton.
The Players, 1890.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.
| PAGE | |
| Junius Brutus Booth | Frontispiece |
| G. W. P. Custis | 9 |
| Edwin Forrest | 11 |
| John McCullough | 15 |
| Major André | 21 |
| J. H. Hackett | 27 |
| Frank Mayo as Davy Crockett | 33 |
| William J. Florence as Bardwell Slote | 37 |
| John T. Raymond | 41 |
| Neil Burgess as the Widow Bedott | 45 |
| F. S. Chanfrau as Mose | 49 |
| Epes Sargent | 55 |
| Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie | 61 |
| Edgar Fawcett | 73 |
| Brander Matthews | 77 |
| Bronson Howard | 81 |
| Charles Dibdin as Mungo | 91 |
| Ira Aldridge as Othello | 95 |
| Old Play-bill | 97 |
| Andrew Jackson Allen | 103 |
| Barney Williams in Dandy Jim | 105 |
| Ralph Keeler | 107 |
| P. T. Barnum | 109 |
| John B. Gough | 113 |
| Thomas D. Rice as Jim Crow | 116 |
| Thomas D. Rice | 118 |
| James Roberts | 120 |
| George Washington Dixon | 121 |
| Mr. Dixon as Zip Coon | 123 |
| Daniel Emmett | 125 |
| Charles White | 127 |
| Edwin P. Christy | 131 |
| George Christy | 133 |
| George Swayne Buckley | 137 |
| Eph Horn | 139 |
| Jerry Bryant | 140 |
| Nelse Seymour | 140 |
| Dan Bryant | 141 |
| Stephen C. Foster | 143 |
| Mrs. Hallam (Mrs. Douglas) | 156 |
| Mark Smith as Mrs. Normer | 159 |
| William Mitchell as Richard Number Three | 161 |
| John Brougham and Georgiana Hodson in Pocahontas | 163 |
| Harry Beckett as the Widow Twankey, in Aladdin | 167 |
| James Lewis as Syntax, in Cinderella at School | 171 |
| George L. Fox as Hamlet | 175 |
| Lydia Thompson as Sindbad | 179 |
| William H. Crane as Le Blanc, in Evangeline | 183 |
| Stuart Robson as Captain Crosstree | 186 |
| Harry Hunter as the Lone Fisherman | 189 |
| Francis Wilson in the Oolah | 193 |
| Mr. Jefferson and Mrs. Wood in Ivanhoe | 196 |
| James T. Powers as Briolet, in The Marquis | 197 |
| Charles Burke as Kazrac, in Aladdin | 200 |
| N. C. Goodwin in Little Jack Sheppard | 201 |
| De Wolf Hopper as Juliet, and Marshall P. Wilder as Romeo | 203 |
| Henry E. Dixey as the Country Girl in Adonis | 205 |
| Munrico Dengremont | 211 |
| Josef Hofman | 215 |
| Otto Hegner | 219 |
| Elsie Leslie | 223 |
| Charles Stratton (“Tom Thumb”) | 227 |
| Lavinia Warren | 231 |
| John Howard Payne | 233 |
| Blind Tom | 235 |
| Master Burke as Hamlet | 237 |
| May Haines and Isa Bowman as the two Princes in King Richard III. | 239 |
| Edmund Kean | 259 |
| William Augustus Conway | 263 |
| James William Wallack | 267 |
| William C. Macready | 271 |
| Charles Kemble | 275 |
| Charles Kean | 279 |
| Edwin Forrest | 283 |
| Edward L. Davenport | 287 |
| James Stark | 291 |
| Edwin Booth | 295 |
| Lawrence Barrett | 299 |
| James E. Murdoch | 303 |
| Charles Fechter | 307 |
| Henry E. Johnstone | 311 |
| John Vandenhoff | 315 |
| George Jones | 319 |
| Augustus A. Addams | 323 |
| William Pelby | 327 |