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Add MS 10449
- Record Id:
- 032-002108246
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002108246
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100000000042.0x000389
- LARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100151952960.0x000001
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 10449
- Title:
-
Stage plots of five Elizabethan plays
- Scope & Content:
-
Stage plots were working documents for the practicalities of theatrical performances, sketching out entrances, and characters and actors in scenes, and with material on properties, stage business and music and noises. They were documents made up as part of the preparation of productions.
The plots do not specify authors or dates, and indeed the titles of the most fragmentary items here have been inferred by scholars - in the case of the 'Second Part of Fortune's Tennis' from the badly damaged title and for 'Troilus and Cressida' from the internal evidence of characters and actions.
Four of the plots can be associated with the Admiral's Men (as can, less certainly, the first chronologically, 'The Dead Man's Fortune'). Of the four later plots, two of the plays can be associated with the Rose Playhouse and two from their dates probably were performed after the company's move to the Fortune. (Theatre histories taken from Wiggins and Richardson, British Drama).
'The Dead Man's Fortune' (author unknown): 1589-94, with 1591 best guess. Company uncertain but possibly the Admiral's Men (Wiggins and Richardson, British Drama, III, 63-65).
'Frederick and Basilea' (author unknown): 1597, performed at the Rose Playhouse by the Admiral's Men, 3 June-4 July 1597, conjectured that the plot compiled in May 1597 (Wiggins and Richardson, British Drama, III, 394-95).
'The Battle of Alcazar' (by George Peele). The play was first performed by February 1589, and was published in 1594, and is the only play where there is both a published text and a plot. The plot was for a revival in the years 1597-1601, probably c. 1601. It was performed by the Admiral's Men, probably at the Fortune Theatre (Wiggins and Richardson, British Drama, II, 427-434)
'Fortune's Tennis, part 2' (author unknown): 1600-1603(?), best guess 1601. Performed by the Admiral's Men, probably after their move to the Fortune (Wiggins & Richardson, IV, 273-74).
'Troilus & Cressida' (by Henry Chettle & Thomas Dekker): Spring 1599. Performed by Admiral's Men at the Rose Playhouse (Wiggins and Richardson, British Drama, IV, 96-97).
Contents:
ff. 1r-v: 'The Dead Man's Fortune'.
f. 2r: 'Frederick and Basilea'.
f. 3r: 'The Battle of Alcazar' (imperfect condition).
f. 4r: 'The Second Part of Fortune's Tennis (fragmentary).
f. 5r: 'Troilus and Cressida' (fragmentary).
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-002108246", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 10449: Stage plots of five Elizabethan plays" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002108246
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-002108246
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
- 1 volume
- Digitised Content:
- http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100151952960.0x000001 (digital images currently unavailable)
- Thumbnail:
-
- Languages:
- English
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1589
- End Date:
- 1603
- Date Range:
- 1589-1603
- Era:
- CE
- Place of Origin:
- London
- Access:
-
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
-
Materials: Paper (ff. 1-2, paper on thin pulp board backing).
Dimensions:
f. 1: 420mm x 325mm (written area 420mm x 320mm, in two columns).
f.2: 420mm x 310mm (writing area: 420mm x 150mm, in two columns but only the first used).
f. 3: 460mm x 300mm (writing area 460mm x 280mm, in two columns).
f. 4: 155 mm x 235 mm (writing area 155 mm x 235 mm, in two columns).
f. 5: 205mm x 310 mm (writing area 205mm x 285 mm, in two columns).
Foliation:
ff. 5 (plus two unfoliated modern paper flyleaves at the beginning and twenty-three at the end)
ff. 1 and 2 are in good condition and complete, still on their original pulp boards.
f. 3 is imperfect, and has been mounted on a paper card. Much of the right-hand column has been lost, although it retains its original dimensions.
ff. 4 and 5 are fragments mounted on paper cards. f. 4 is made up of fragments from the upper part of the plot.
Script: Late 16th/early 17th century hands:
ff. 3 and 5 are probably in the same hand; otherwise different scribes for each plot.
Binding: British Museum.
- Custodial History:
-
Origin:
London.
Provenance:
(?) Edward Alleyn (b. 1566, d. 1626), actor, theatre entrepreneur and founder of Dulwich College, a conjecture made by George Steevens and W.W. Greg, and made highly plausible by his roles as actor and theatre manager at the time when the stage plots were compiled (Alleyn appears as an actor on the plots of 'Frederick and Basilea' and 'The Battle of Alcazar' and was, moreover, involved not only with the Admiral's Men, with which all or most of the plots were for, but was actively involved in the management of the two playhouses, the Rose and later the Fortune, where four of the five plays were performed). From Alleyn the plots would have passed to his foundation, Dulwich College from which they were pilfered in the 18th century).
George Steevens (b. 1736, d. 1800), literary editor and scholar, owned at least 'The Dead Man's Fortune' and 'Frederick and Basilea', which were published posthumously in The plays of William Shakespeare, ed. by Samuel Johnson, George Steevens and Isaac Reed, 5th edition, III, 414-6. He probably owned the other plots.
At his death in 1800 the plots were bought by Edmond Malone (1741-1812), literary scholar and biographer, and at his death they passed to Malone's collaborator James Boswell (1778-1822), barrister and literary scholar.
In June 1825, at the sale of Boswell's library, the plots were bought by the bookseller Thomas Thorpe: the sales catalogue identifies the plots of 'The Dead's Man's Fortune', 'Frederick and Basilea' and 'The Battle of Alcazar', and 'a fragment of another Plott' - evidently the jumbled-together fragments of the two other plots.
Richard Heber (1774-1833) bought the plots, which were sold off after his death in February 1836, bought again by Thorpe who evidently sold them to another bookseller, Rodd.
In April 1836 the British Museum bought the plots.
This acccount is derived from W.W. Greg, Dramatic Documents from the Elizabethan Playhouses, 2 vols [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931], I, 8-11).
- Source of Acquisition:
- Purchased by the British Museum, April 1836.
- Arrangement:
-
The previously loose sheets were bound together in this volume after purchase and repair by the British Museum.
- Information About Copies:
-
Facsimile of the three most complete stage plots in The Theatre Plats or Three Old English Dramas: namely the Battle of Alcazar, Frederick and Basilea, and of the Dead Man's Fortune, from the originals, which were Suspended near the prompter's Station, in the Fortune Theatre, in the latter part of the sixteenth century, ed. by James O. Halliwell (London: For Private Circulation, 1860).
Transcription of all the plots in The Henslowe Papers: being documents supplementary to Henslowe's diary, ed. Walter W. Greg (London: A.H. Bullen,1907), pp. 133-45.
Facsimile and transcription of all the plots in W.W. Greg, Dramatic Documents from the Elizabethan Playhouses, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931), vol. II, Plots I, III-VI.
Transcription of the plots in David Bradley, From Text to Performance in the Elizabethan Theatre: Preparing the Play for theStage (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 92, 106, 110, 111, 122
Transcription of the plot of 'Frederick and Basilea' in Documents of the Rose Playhouse, ed. Carol Chillington Rutter (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), pp. 112-13.
- Publications:
-
David Bradley, From Text to Performance in the Elizabethan Theatre: Preparing the Play for theStage (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
The Stukeley Plays: 'The Battle of Alcazar' by George Peele and 'The Famous History of the Life and Death of Captain Thomas Stukeley', ed. by Charles Edelman (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005).
W.W. Greg, Dramatic Documents from the Elizabethan Playhouses, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931).
The plays of William Shakespeare, with the corrections and illustrations of various commentators, to which are added notes by Samuel Johnson and George Steevens, ed. by Samuel Johnson, George Steevens and Isaac Reed, 5th edition, 21 vols (London: J. Johnson, 1803).
Tiffany Stern, Documents of Performance in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
Martin Wiggins and Catherine Richardson, British Drama, 1533-1642: A Catalogue, 9 vols, in progress (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013- ).
- Exhibitions:
- Shakespeare in Ten Acts, British Library, London, 15 April 2016 - 6 September 2016
- Material Type:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Notes:
- Plot for 'Dead Man's Fortune'. Exhibited: Shakespeare in Ten Acts, British Library, London, 15 April 2016 - 6 September 2016.