Acting Theory and the English Stage 1700-1830 Volume 1

During the eighteenth century, treatises on the science of elocution, gesture and naturalness abounded. This title draws together a representative selection of the most difficult-to-access texts in the period. It helps cultural historians to examine the place of stagecraft in the eighteenth-century imagination. Acknowledgements, Note on the Text, General Introduction, An Essay Towards an History of Dancing (1712), Censor (1717), An Elegy on the Death of Mr. Robert Wilks, etc. (1732), Prompter (1735), Thomas Betterton, The History of the English Stage (1741), A Rhapsody on the Stage; or, The Art of Playing (1746), Human Physiognomy Explain’d (1747), An Essay on the Stage (1754), Reflections Upon Theatrical Expression in Tragedy (1755), Editorial Notes