A Biographical Dictionary Of Actors Actresses Musicians Dancers Managers Other Stage Personnel In London 1660 1800

Those featured in Volume 10 include Margaret Martyr, a singer, actress, and dancer whose "conjugal virtues were often impeached," according to the July 1792Thespian Magazine. The Diction­ary describes this least constant of lovers as "of middling height, with a figure well-proportioned for breeches parts. [Her] black-haired, black-eyed beauty and clear soprano made her an immedi­ate popular success in merry maids and tuneful minxes, the piquant and the pert, for a quarter century."

Volume 16 completes the magisterial Biographical Dictionary which provides information on some 8,500 of the people who contributed to the patent theatres, opera houses, fair booths, concert halls, and pleasure gardens in and around London during the period from 1660 to 1800. The final volume centers on Margaret Woffington, "the most beautiful woman that ever adorned a theatre" (the judgment of Thomas Davies--evidenced by the nine included portraits). Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Volumes three and four of this monumen­tal work include full entries for all such illustrious names as those of the Cibbers--Colley, Theophilus, and Susanna Maria--Kitty Clive, and Charlotte Charke, George Colman, the Elder, and the Younger, William Davenant, and De Loutherboug. But here also are full entries for dozens of important secondary figures and of minor ones whose stories have never been told, as well as a census (and at least a few recoverable facts) for even the most inconsiderable performers and servants of the theatres. As in the previous volumes in this dis­tinguished series, the accompanying illus­trations include at least one picture of each subject for whom a portrait exists.

An engaging overview of dance from the Medieval era through the Baroque

Tobe completed in 12volumes, this monumental work here begins publica­tion with the first two volumes--Abaco to Bertie and Bertin to Byzard. When completed, it is expected that the bio­graphical dictionary will include informa­tion on more than 8,500 individuals. Hundreds of printed sources have been searched for this project, and dozens of repositories combed, and the names of personnel listed have been filtered through parish registers whenever possible. From published and unpublished sources, from wills, archives of professional societies and guilds, from records of colleges, uni­versities, and clubs, and from the contri­butions of selfless scholars, the authors have here assembled material which il­luminates theatrical and musical activity in London in the 1660-1800 period. The information here amassed will doubtless be augmented by other spe­cialists in Restoration and eighteenth-century theatre and drama, but it is not likely that the number of persons now known surely or conjectured finally to have been connected with theatrical en­terprise in this period will ever be in­creased considerably. Certainly, the contributions made here add immeasurably to existing knowledge, and in a number of instances correct standard histories or reference works. The accompanying illustrations, esti­mated to be some 1,400 likenesses--at least one picture of each subject for whom a portrait exists--may prove to be a use­ful feature of the Work. The authors have gone beyond embellishment of the text, and have attempted to list all origi­nal portraits any knowledge of which is now recoverable, and have tried to ascer­tain the present location of portraits in every medium.

The idea that morris dancing captures the essence of ancient Englishness, inherently carefree and merry, has been present for over four hundred years. The Ancient English Morris Dance traces the history of those attitudes, from the dance's introduction to England in the fifteenth century, through the contention of the Reformation and Civil War, during which morris dancing and maypoles became potent symbols of the older ways of living. Thereafter it developed and diversified, neglected and disdained, until antiquaries began to take an interest in its history, leading to its re-invention as emblematic of Victorian concepts of Merrie England in the nineteenth century. The quest for authentic understanding of what that meant led to its revival at the beginning of the twentieth century, but that was predicated on the perception of it as part of England's declining rural past, to the neglect of the one area (the industrial north-west) where it continued to flourish. The revival led in turn to its further evolution into the multitude of forms and styles in which it may be encountered today.