Henderson collection: Difference between revisions

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The "William Henderson collection of playbills, etc.," known as the Henderson collection, consists of over 8,000 items (chiefly 7,188 playbills) concerning music on the British stage, Shakespeare, stage adaptations of Sir Walter Scott's historical novel ''Waverley'', and Scottish plays (including plays with Scottish characters). It was assembled by music printer and composer William Henderson (1831-1891) some time before 1889. Henry and Emily Folger purchased it at the [[Augustin Daly]] dispersal sale of March 19, 1900.  
The "William Henderson collection of playbills, etc.," known as the Henderson collection and part of a larger [[Playbill collection]], consists of over 8,000 items (chiefly 7,188 playbills) concerning music on the British stage, Shakespeare, stage adaptations of Sir Walter Scott's historical novel ''Waverley'', and Scottish plays (including plays with Scottish characters). It was assembled by music printer and composer William Henderson (1831-1891) some time before 1889. Henry and Emily Folger purchased it at the [[Augustin Daly]] dispersal sale of March 19, 1900.  


== Collection scope and contents ==
== Collection scope and contents ==
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The collection is made up of 70 boxed unbound folio "volumes" divided into 4 topical series: Series 1: "Music on the British stage" (Mus 1-23), Series 2: "Shakespeare" (Sh 1-23), Series 3: "Waverley" (W 1-15), and Series 4: "Scotch plays" (Sc 1-9).  
The collection is made up of 70 boxed unbound folio "volumes" divided into 4 topical series: Series 1: "Music on the British stage" (Mus 1-23), Series 2: "Shakespeare" (Sh 1-23), Series 3: "Waverley" (W 1-15), and Series 4: "Scotch plays" (Sc 1-9).  


While the majority of playbill collections are amassed by theater, by period, or are concerned with the careers and tastes of individuals, the Henderson collection is arranged by type or genre. There are some specialized collections, for example, of music hall or circus materials, but Henderson's 19th century attempt at illustrating the progress of "Music on the British Stage" is unique and, particularly given his profession, worthy of closer study. Similarly, the Shakespeare section provides scholars with unparalleled opportunities for comparative studies of production styles and performance trends.
While the majority of playbill collections are amassed by theater, by period, or are concerned with the careers and tastes of individuals, the Henderson collection is arranged by type or genre. There are some specialized collections, for example, of music hall or circus materials, but Henderson's 19th century attempt at illustrating the progress of "Music on the British Stage" is unique and, particularly given his profession, worthy of closer study. Similarly, the Shakespeare section provides scholars with unparalleled opportunities for comparative studies of production styles and performance trends. A typed list of playbills in the Shakespeare series is kept in a binder at the Reading Room desk, and is also [http://shakespeare.folger.edu/other/Henderson_Shx_Playbill_List.pdf available as a PDF].


===Music on the British stage===
NB I’m adding in wiki markup now, don’t be alarmed by all the random quotation marks, equals signs, and brackets!!! It’ll make it very easy for us once I copy and paste it in the markup.--RBS
There is no known finding aid to the playbills in this series. Manuscripts are described in the finding aid [http://findingaids.folger.edu/dfohendersonmss.xml Guide to the Manuscripts in the William Henderson Collection of Playbills, etc., 1801-1889].


===Shakespeare===
== Finding aid to the Henderson Collection Playbills in the Waverley section==
A typed list of playbills in the Shakespeare series is kept in a binder at the Reading Room desk, and is also [http://shakespeare.folger.edu/other/Henderson_Shx_Playbill_List.pdf available as a PDF].


=== Waverley and Scottish plays===
In ‘’Scott Dramatized’’, H. Philip Bolton described the Henderson Collection at the [[Folger Shakespeare Library]] as “the premiere assortment of Scott-derived playbills in the world.”<ref>H. Philip Bolton, ‘’Scott Dramatized’’. London: Mansell Publishing, 1992: xi</ref>. According to a computer analysis conducted by Dr. Barbara Bell, the Henderson Waverley collection is a representative sample of all of the Scott adaptations in the UK in the 19th century. So, while the Waverley section of the Henderson Collection does not represent the totality of performances in the United Kingdom derived from the works of Sir Walter Scott during the nineteenth century, its size and depth provide an accurate record of Scott’s popular reputation within the theater. Consisting of over 1,300 playbills from the UK and the West Indies, the extent of the Waverley section of the collection allows for investigation into multiple aspects of adaptations of Scott’s novels, English and Scottish theater of the era, and of the people involved in the Scott adaptations, including composers, playwrights, actors, and actresses.
The Waverley and Scottish sections contain around 2,000 of the Henderson collection's 7,200 playbills. These were surveyed by Barbara Bell of The University of Glasgow in 1988, and print-outs of the contents lists she made are shelved with the collection. Machine-readable versions of the lists are in progress. Manuscripts are described in the finding aid [http://findingaids.folger.edu/dfohendersonmss.xml Guide to the Manuscripts in the William Henderson Collection of Playbills, etc., 1801-1889].


The single greatest emphasis within the Waverley and Scottish sections is upon the work of the Theatre Royal, Edinburgh. The major London theatres are adequately represented—everything that one would expect to find, in terms of ''Waverley'' productions at Covent Garden and Drury Lane, is present in that section, without overemphasis, ie., while these bills are more easily come by than many, Henderson did not pad out his numbers with duplicates. The minor London theaters are similarly dealt with and towards the middle and latter parts of the century there are examples of the work of some of the more obscure London venues. However, it is in the sheer breadth and range of the provincial bills that collection's real strength lies. Bills from major provincial cities are interspersed with examples from towns and villages all over Britain, where frequently theater is more properly described on the bill as "a commodious room" in the inn. Comparison of the contents of the Waverley and Scottish sections seem to suggest that, along with individual items, Henderson had access to collections of bills from small provincial circuits, which he then split between his sections, according to his own criteria.  
=== Initial survey by Dr. Barbara Bell ===


Certain areas are underrepresented, like Glasgow, Leeds and Birmingham, but very few places are omitted entirely, and it is more than likely for example, that Glasgow would figure more prominently in the Shakespeare section (which has not been systematically surveyed). There are also a few 'exotic' items, notably a series of bills from Demerara.
In 1988, while a Ph.D. student at the University of Glasgow, Barbara Bell began to compile the first annotated survey of the Waverley section of the Henderson collection. Bell’s goal was the creation of an electronic dataset of all nineteenth-century stage adaptations of Walter Scott’s works in nineteenth-century Scotland, comprising information derived from over 35,000 playbills. She ultimately created a fully-analyzable electronic database for the Scottish Theatre Archive at the University of Glasgow, representing more than 30,000 nights of performance in over 280 theaters.<ref> Barbara Bell.  Nineteenth-century Stage Adaptations of the Works of Sir Walter Scott on the Scottish Stage: 1810-1900.  An unpublished Ph.D. thesis submitted to Glasgow University, April 1991. Only this printout remains, as a consequence of the loss of the database on the University mainframe computer.</ref> Initially housed on a mainframe computer at the University of Glasgow, the electronic data of Bell’s efforts were subsequently lost. Thus, until now, the results of her work are no longer available in digital form but contained only in printouts housed at the University of Glasgow. Dr. Bell also printed out the portion of her larger database comprising the Waverley and Scottish sections of the Henderson collection for the Folger Shakespeare Library (1300+ items). The printout of the Scottish portion of the Waverley section is the basis for the new digital finding aid.


===Manuscripts===
As Dr. Bell points out, “when one wishes to go beyond an apt illustration, to reveal any single playbill as containing evidence of significant managerial practices or cultural trends…one comes up against the challenge of dealing with bills in the quantity that will allow such practices and trends to be identified with any degree of confidence.” Dr. Bell conducted a number of analyses on the larger dataset before it was erased.<ref> The software used was Famulus77, designed for bibliographic records.  The project ran on Glasgow University’s mainframe computer, an ICL3980.  Today a laptop could perform the same functions.</ref> The Waverley section of the Henderson Collection, found to be representative of the whole, was used to help formulate relevant search terms and assess the results derived from the larger study.  
Approximately 600 manuscripts are spread throughout the Henderson collection. They include autograph letters of 19th-century authors, poets, artists, composers, vocalists, and actors such as Clara Schumann, Mark Twain, Sir Walter Scott, Sir Arthur Sullivan, Sir William Gilbert, and John Ruskin. Additional manuscript content consists of fragments of manuscript music, annotations, clipped signatures, and facsimiles of manuscripts.


For more information the manuscript contents of the Henderson collection, including item-level descriptions, see the finding aid [http://findingaids.folger.edu/dfohendersonmss.xml Guide to the Manuscripts in the William Henderson Collection of Playbills, etc., 1801-1889].
The body of Scott adaptations is particularly significant for theater history for a number of reasons, not least because they “provided a major impetus for the eventual abolition of the Theatre Patent, by gifting the burgeoning Minor theatre industry with a semi-legitimate repertoire with which they could compete with the Patent Houses.” Scott adaptations in the 19th century inaugurated the Scottish National Drama and essentially defined the genre. Bell’s analyses showed, for example, that “at the height of its popularity, works drawn from Scott appeared on the Scottish stage one night in three. They were done by every theatre and company from the Patent houses to the smallest travelling bands, and every audience saw largely the same Scott originals in their stage versions. By drawing out the frequency of performance and also the variety of that performance, noting not only when Scott dramas were performed but the variety of works from which they came, the ‘shape’ of the place within the repertoire held by this material emerged from the mass. Further, it became possible to see phases of usage affecting the choices being made about the pieces by theatre managers.”<ref>Bell, pp. 7-8</ref> 


== Condition ==


The bills are stuck down at the corners on both recto and verso sides of the folios and there is no great consistency shown, although the recto predominates. Although providing protection from damage by knocking against the side of the boxes, the mounting paper is not acid-free and blank leaves often display offsetting from the item opposite. This at least has the merit of giving some indication of 'missing' items. It is virtually impossible to identify any changes made to the content or order of the collection whilst in the possession of Augustin Daly, but some handful of leaves would appear to be out of order. The vast majority of the bills before 1840 are in near perfect condition. There are a number of items that were evidently cut or torn before Henderson stuck them down, but there are no more than 2-3% of bills that require repair today. After 1840 the picture is not so happy and is complicated by the increasing tendency to print sheets on both sides, and for bills covering more than one day.


The fragile paper of the later bills has frequently split or is showing signs of distress along the folds necessary to contain these larger items within the mounting. Some edges are very brittle and Henderson's habit of sticking down the bigger bills by two, three, or four corners, seemingly at random, puts them at risk, for example, an item pasted by the upper two corners on the verso is at great risk of tearing at those corners from the free weight of the rest of the bill when the page is turned. Also, because Henderson made specific choices about the placing of items within the collection, it becomes difficult to examine them fully in their present state—a double-sided bill containing a production of "Guy Mannering" is, for example, pasted down with that cast uppermost, despite the fact that the name of the theatre and date cannot be seen without detaching the bill from its mounting.
=== Format of the Finding Aid ===


==Publications==
In order to produce multiple access points to the information contained on the individual playbills, Bell encoded each playbill according to the fields described below. These fields are retained in the finding aid, which is formatted in PDF and so accommodates simple searches.  It will guide subsequent efforts to convert the Waverley collection as well as Bell’s Glasgow printout back into an electronic database.
 
;THEA
:performance venue; In some instances, the theater was assigned by Barbara Bell based on evidence within the playbill. Assigned theaters are indicated with [A].
;DATE
:date of performance
;TYPE
:genre of production as shown on playbill
;ACTS
:number of acts. Compressed or truncated works are noted in the SPEC field.
;MAIN
:title of main production as shown on playbill
;SUPP
:title or description of supplementary production preceding main performances or after it.
;AUTH
:playwright of main production as shown on playbill
;COMP
:composer of main production or of specific elements (e.g. medley overtures)
;WORK
:title of Scott novel/poem from which main production derived. “Alien” signifies instances where title is in doubt.
;BILL
:identification number assigned by Barbara Bell. The “W” indicates that the playbill is part of the Waverley section of the Henderson Collection.
;FORD
:catalogue entry in Richard Ford’s Dramatisations of Scott’s Novels (Oxford: Oxford Bibliographical Society, 1979)
;LEAD
:cast list and roles. Whereas Philip Bolton includes the entire cast, Bell concentrated on the major roles only.
;SONG
:songs and performers in main or supplementary productions. Bell also included instances of Scottish music/overtures/songs also mentioned on the playbills.
;SPEC
:special features of playbill, which may include: days of week of performances; references to benefits, royalty and others in attendance; new scenery, music, and costumes; notable additional performances, e.g., acrobats, equestrian, juveniles, etc.; cross-dressing by cast members.
 
=== Using the finding aid ===
 
Six main thematic points stand out as areas of interest, which are summarized according to Barbara Bell’s original fields:
#Venues
#Timeline of performances
#Types of performances
#Titles of plays and adaptations
#Individuals
#Special features of playbills
 
==== Venues ====
 
Major theaters in Edinburgh and London are well-represented within the Waverley section, including the Theatre Royal in Edinburgh, Covent Garden, and Drury Lane in London. More obscure and minor venues, particularly in London are also included. The collection’s real strength, however, lies in the breadth and range of the provincial bills. Bills from major provincial cities are interspersed with examples from towns and villages all over Britain. Certain areas are underrepresented, like Glasgow, Leeds and Birmingham, but very few places are omitted entirely. There are also a few “exotic” items, notably a series of bills from Demerara, as well as at least one American performance in Boston in 1833.
 
==== Timeline of performances ====
 
The earliest playbills with verified dates include performances based on Scott’s poems ‘’Marmion’’ and ‘’The Lady of the Lake’’ from the 1810s. Well over half of the playbills in the Waverley section date from the 1820s and 1830s, during Scott’s most popular years and following his death. Analysis of the dates of performances derived from individual works provides information charting the popularity of those specific works. The last three decades represented in the Henderson Collection show a dramatic downturn in the number of playbills. However, whether this reflects the decline of the popularity of Scott’s works on the stage or changes in William Henderson’s collecting interests cannot be determined.
 
==== Types of performances ====
 
Performances of Scott’s works ranged from burlesque shows in West End music halls to grand operas such as Donizetti’s ‘’Lucia di Lammermoor.’’ The extent to which Scott was adapted across varying types of theater and performances is highlighted in the playbills in the Henderson Collection, illustrating the wide appeal Scott held.
 
Locations of performances can be viewed as a determining factor in the types of presentations produced. The size and resources of theaters could affect whether a reading of individual scenes or a larger production could be staged. The extent to which music played a role in particular productions is also seen by the inclusion of lists of songs within the playbills.
 
==== Titles of Scott’s works and derivatives ====
 
Performances documented in the Henderson Collection include those directly based on Scott’s works, as well as those more loosely derived from his novels and poems. ‘’Guy Mannering’’ and ‘’Rob Roy’’ represent the most popular titles reflected in the playbills. Barbara Bell’s original encoding of the playbills allows for research into the various titles based on Scott’s works and how those works were transformed by adaptations. For example, Daniel Terry’s popular adaption, ‘’Guy Mannering; or The Gipsy’s Prophecy’’ is well-represented in the collection, perhaps hinting at the importance of the characters of Meg Merrilies and Dandie Dinmont within adaptations of Scott’s second novel. Performances were sometimes based on single works, whereas others were combinations of scenes from various Scott titles. First night performances of works, such as the 25 January 1820 Covent Garden production of Terry’s adaptation of The Antiquary are also found within the collection.
 
==== Individuals ====
 
At the heart of the Waverley section of the Henderson Collection is Sir Walter Scott himself. Yet the numerous individuals from playwrights to composers to performers who brought his works to the dramatic stage were often integral to the success of particular productions. Adaptations by the playwright Daniel Terry for ‘’Guy Mannering’’ are prevalent throughout the collection, illustrating his close association with Scott and his works. Others, such as Thomas Dibdin and Isaac Pocock, and the English composer Henry Bishop, are also well-represented, as are works composed by Donizetti and Berlioz.
 
The performances of Scott’s work presented a who’s who of dramatic actors and actresses from the British and Scottish theater. Prominent throughout the collection are depictions by noted performers such as Henry Siddons, Harriet Siddons, Charles Kemble, Lucia Vestris, Thomas P. Cooke, and Julia Nicol, Charles Mackay, among others.
 
Where casts and/or songs from a performance mirrored those from earlier dates in that performance’s run, Bell indicated these duplicates by using “As in” or “See” and the referenced date of performance in place of a re-listing of the cast or song. Searches for particular individuals or songs across performances should bear this in mind.
 
==== Special Features of Playbills ====
 
Various qualitative aspects of specific performances are included in the SPEC field as outlined by Barbara Bell. Information contained within this field provides a view into the value placed upon certain aspects of individual performances as well as the larger repertoire of Scott’s works by theater managers, performers, and audiences. According to Bell, the field includes material coded for access, including benefit performances and visits by royalty and visiting foreign leaders. At least two performances held in honor of Scott around the time of his death (bills W12:127 and W15:97) are found in the Waverley Henderson Collection. The information contained in the notes field also allows for investigation of other forms of entertainment found on British stages of the nineteenth century, such as equestrian performances. Issues of race and ethnicity are seen in the presentation of a play (W4:38) in which “Native American Indian warriors,” actual members of the Seneca nation, performed, and a performance by the “Negro melodist” Piccaninny Colman (W10:129R), performing in blackface.
 
== Production of finding aid and plans for future databases ==
 
Thanks to receipt of a Fulbright Fellowship by Molly Anne Rothenberg, Professor of English at Tulane University, Bell’s work was transformed to electronic text in 2014 in order to create a finding aid hosted by the Folger Shakespeare Library. Plans are underway to transform the finding aid into an electronic database on which complex analyses can be performed. This database will then serve as the template for the conversion of the Bell printout of all Scottish adaptations of Scott, currently held at the University of Glasgow.
 
Encoding and presentation of the information derived from individual playbills within the Henderson Collection will allow for a dynamic analysis of varied points of access for researchers. As opposed to a traditional electronic finding aid focusing on the arrangement and description of the collection contents, or handlists and catalogues compiled by scholars such as H. Philip Bolton and Richard Ford, the goal of the database design is its use as a research tool that will allow for the generation of aggregated data and sophisticated analysis. The database of the Waverley playbills provides the means for examination of the various fields of information contained within the playbills and allows for the identification and interpretation of trends and patterns across the various fields. 
 
Dr. Bell has published some of her analyses of the complete collection, produced before her database was lost; in these articles, the power of analyses of such aggregated data becomes visible, making clear the importance of reproducing the original database.
 
===== Acknowledgments =====
 
The Folger Shakespeare Library granted Professor Molly Anne Rothenberg readership in fall 2005, at which time she was introduced to the Henderson collection and the Bell printout by then Curator of Art and Special Collections, Erin Blake. In 2014, Professor Rothenberg dedicated some of her funding from the Weiss Presidential Fellowship for Undergraduate Teaching at Tulane University to creating an electronic version of the Bell printout, as a thank-you gift to the Folger. With the cooperation of Erin Blake and Eric Johnson at the Folger, Professor Rothenberg initiated a Fulbright Fellowship project to include the production of an online finding aid for the Waverley section of the Henderson collection as well as to establish collaborative ties with the director of the Corson Collection of Walter Scott materials and the Walter Scott Digital Archive, Dr. Paul Barnaby. The successful application to the Fulbright would not have been possible without guidance from Professors Evan Gottlieb (Oregon State University) and Tara Ghoshal Wallace (George Washington University). Professor Rothenberg is extremely grateful to Professor Penny Fielding and her colleagues at the School of Literatures, Languages, and Cultures at the University of Edinburgh for supporting her Fulbright application and providing so many collegial opportunities around the project. She gives special thanks to Dr. Paul Barnaby, editor of the Walter Scott Digital Archive at Edinburgh University Library, for his guidance.  We are grateful to the librarians at the National Library of Scotland for their expertise. Patrick Henry, doctoral student at GWU, assisted Professor Rothenberg in the initial survey of the Waverley collection, photographed the Bell printout, established the protocol for producing the finding aid, and began the painstaking work of digitization. Chris Harter, Director of Library and Reference Services at the Amistad Research Center, completed more than half of the digitization and collaborated on the writing of the Folgerpedia article. None of this work would have been possible without the pioneering efforts of Dr. Barbara Bell, who not only performed all of the initial work but also has provided the history of her involvement with the Henderson collection as well as analyses of the data contained therein. 
== Gallery ==
 
== Bibliography ==
The collection was described the brief article [http://books.google.com/books?id=H-8GAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA76&ots=qFgmAhc2bS&dq=scottish%20notes%20and%20queries%20october%201889%20a%20library%20of%20old%20playbills&pg=PA76#v=onepage&q=scottish%20notes%20and%20queries%20october%201889%20a%20library%20of%20old%20playbills&f=false "A Library of Old Playbills"] in ''Scottish Notes and Queries'' for October 1889, pages 76-77.  
The collection was described the brief article [http://books.google.com/books?id=H-8GAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA76&ots=qFgmAhc2bS&dq=scottish%20notes%20and%20queries%20october%201889%20a%20library%20of%20old%20playbills&pg=PA76#v=onepage&q=scottish%20notes%20and%20queries%20october%201889%20a%20library%20of%20old%20playbills&f=false "A Library of Old Playbills"] in ''Scottish Notes and Queries'' for October 1889, pages 76-77.  


==Article history==
== Notes ==
The majority of the content of this article comes from a study conducted by Barbara Bell, The University of Glasgow, in 1988.
<references>


[[Category:Collection]]
[[Category:Collection]]
[[Category: Manuscripts]]
[[Category: Playbills]]
[[Category:19th century]]
[[Category:19th century]]

Revision as of 13:41, 12 April 2015

The "William Henderson collection of playbills, etc.," known as the Henderson collection and part of a larger Playbill collection, consists of over 8,000 items (chiefly 7,188 playbills) concerning music on the British stage, Shakespeare, stage adaptations of Sir Walter Scott's historical novel Waverley, and Scottish plays (including plays with Scottish characters). It was assembled by music printer and composer William Henderson (1831-1891) some time before 1889. Henry and Emily Folger purchased it at the Augustin Daly dispersal sale of March 19, 1900.

Collection scope and contents

The collection is made up of 70 boxed unbound folio "volumes" divided into 4 topical series: Series 1: "Music on the British stage" (Mus 1-23), Series 2: "Shakespeare" (Sh 1-23), Series 3: "Waverley" (W 1-15), and Series 4: "Scotch plays" (Sc 1-9).

While the majority of playbill collections are amassed by theater, by period, or are concerned with the careers and tastes of individuals, the Henderson collection is arranged by type or genre. There are some specialized collections, for example, of music hall or circus materials, but Henderson's 19th century attempt at illustrating the progress of "Music on the British Stage" is unique and, particularly given his profession, worthy of closer study. Similarly, the Shakespeare section provides scholars with unparalleled opportunities for comparative studies of production styles and performance trends. A typed list of playbills in the Shakespeare series is kept in a binder at the Reading Room desk, and is also available as a PDF.

NB I’m adding in wiki markup now, don’t be alarmed by all the random quotation marks, equals signs, and brackets!!! It’ll make it very easy for us once I copy and paste it in the markup.--RBS

Finding aid to the Henderson Collection Playbills in the Waverley section

In ‘’Scott Dramatized’’, H. Philip Bolton described the Henderson Collection at the Folger Shakespeare Library as “the premiere assortment of Scott-derived playbills in the world.”[1]. According to a computer analysis conducted by Dr. Barbara Bell, the Henderson Waverley collection is a representative sample of all of the Scott adaptations in the UK in the 19th century. So, while the Waverley section of the Henderson Collection does not represent the totality of performances in the United Kingdom derived from the works of Sir Walter Scott during the nineteenth century, its size and depth provide an accurate record of Scott’s popular reputation within the theater. Consisting of over 1,300 playbills from the UK and the West Indies, the extent of the Waverley section of the collection allows for investigation into multiple aspects of adaptations of Scott’s novels, English and Scottish theater of the era, and of the people involved in the Scott adaptations, including composers, playwrights, actors, and actresses.

Initial survey by Dr. Barbara Bell

In 1988, while a Ph.D. student at the University of Glasgow, Barbara Bell began to compile the first annotated survey of the Waverley section of the Henderson collection. Bell’s goal was the creation of an electronic dataset of all nineteenth-century stage adaptations of Walter Scott’s works in nineteenth-century Scotland, comprising information derived from over 35,000 playbills. She ultimately created a fully-analyzable electronic database for the Scottish Theatre Archive at the University of Glasgow, representing more than 30,000 nights of performance in over 280 theaters.[2] Initially housed on a mainframe computer at the University of Glasgow, the electronic data of Bell’s efforts were subsequently lost. Thus, until now, the results of her work are no longer available in digital form but contained only in printouts housed at the University of Glasgow. Dr. Bell also printed out the portion of her larger database comprising the Waverley and Scottish sections of the Henderson collection for the Folger Shakespeare Library (1300+ items). The printout of the Scottish portion of the Waverley section is the basis for the new digital finding aid.

As Dr. Bell points out, “when one wishes to go beyond an apt illustration, to reveal any single playbill as containing evidence of significant managerial practices or cultural trends…one comes up against the challenge of dealing with bills in the quantity that will allow such practices and trends to be identified with any degree of confidence.” Dr. Bell conducted a number of analyses on the larger dataset before it was erased.[3] The Waverley section of the Henderson Collection, found to be representative of the whole, was used to help formulate relevant search terms and assess the results derived from the larger study.

The body of Scott adaptations is particularly significant for theater history for a number of reasons, not least because they “provided a major impetus for the eventual abolition of the Theatre Patent, by gifting the burgeoning Minor theatre industry with a semi-legitimate repertoire with which they could compete with the Patent Houses.” Scott adaptations in the 19th century inaugurated the Scottish National Drama and essentially defined the genre. Bell’s analyses showed, for example, that “at the height of its popularity, works drawn from Scott appeared on the Scottish stage one night in three. They were done by every theatre and company from the Patent houses to the smallest travelling bands, and every audience saw largely the same Scott originals in their stage versions. By drawing out the frequency of performance and also the variety of that performance, noting not only when Scott dramas were performed but the variety of works from which they came, the ‘shape’ of the place within the repertoire held by this material emerged from the mass. Further, it became possible to see phases of usage affecting the choices being made about the pieces by theatre managers.”[4]


Format of the Finding Aid

In order to produce multiple access points to the information contained on the individual playbills, Bell encoded each playbill according to the fields described below. These fields are retained in the finding aid, which is formatted in PDF and so accommodates simple searches. It will guide subsequent efforts to convert the Waverley collection as well as Bell’s Glasgow printout back into an electronic database.

THEA
performance venue; In some instances, the theater was assigned by Barbara Bell based on evidence within the playbill. Assigned theaters are indicated with [A].
DATE
date of performance
TYPE
genre of production as shown on playbill
ACTS
number of acts. Compressed or truncated works are noted in the SPEC field.
MAIN
title of main production as shown on playbill
SUPP
title or description of supplementary production preceding main performances or after it.
AUTH
playwright of main production as shown on playbill
COMP
composer of main production or of specific elements (e.g. medley overtures)
WORK
title of Scott novel/poem from which main production derived. “Alien” signifies instances where title is in doubt.
BILL
identification number assigned by Barbara Bell. The “W” indicates that the playbill is part of the Waverley section of the Henderson Collection.
FORD
catalogue entry in Richard Ford’s Dramatisations of Scott’s Novels (Oxford: Oxford Bibliographical Society, 1979)
LEAD
cast list and roles. Whereas Philip Bolton includes the entire cast, Bell concentrated on the major roles only.
SONG
songs and performers in main or supplementary productions. Bell also included instances of Scottish music/overtures/songs also mentioned on the playbills.
SPEC
special features of playbill, which may include: days of week of performances; references to benefits, royalty and others in attendance; new scenery, music, and costumes; notable additional performances, e.g., acrobats, equestrian, juveniles, etc.; cross-dressing by cast members.

Using the finding aid

Six main thematic points stand out as areas of interest, which are summarized according to Barbara Bell’s original fields:

  1. Venues
  2. Timeline of performances
  3. Types of performances
  4. Titles of plays and adaptations
  5. Individuals
  6. Special features of playbills

Venues

Major theaters in Edinburgh and London are well-represented within the Waverley section, including the Theatre Royal in Edinburgh, Covent Garden, and Drury Lane in London. More obscure and minor venues, particularly in London are also included. The collection’s real strength, however, lies in the breadth and range of the provincial bills. Bills from major provincial cities are interspersed with examples from towns and villages all over Britain. Certain areas are underrepresented, like Glasgow, Leeds and Birmingham, but very few places are omitted entirely. There are also a few “exotic” items, notably a series of bills from Demerara, as well as at least one American performance in Boston in 1833.

Timeline of performances

The earliest playbills with verified dates include performances based on Scott’s poems ‘’Marmion’’ and ‘’The Lady of the Lake’’ from the 1810s. Well over half of the playbills in the Waverley section date from the 1820s and 1830s, during Scott’s most popular years and following his death. Analysis of the dates of performances derived from individual works provides information charting the popularity of those specific works. The last three decades represented in the Henderson Collection show a dramatic downturn in the number of playbills. However, whether this reflects the decline of the popularity of Scott’s works on the stage or changes in William Henderson’s collecting interests cannot be determined.

Types of performances

Performances of Scott’s works ranged from burlesque shows in West End music halls to grand operas such as Donizetti’s ‘’Lucia di Lammermoor.’’ The extent to which Scott was adapted across varying types of theater and performances is highlighted in the playbills in the Henderson Collection, illustrating the wide appeal Scott held.

Locations of performances can be viewed as a determining factor in the types of presentations produced. The size and resources of theaters could affect whether a reading of individual scenes or a larger production could be staged. The extent to which music played a role in particular productions is also seen by the inclusion of lists of songs within the playbills.

Titles of Scott’s works and derivatives

Performances documented in the Henderson Collection include those directly based on Scott’s works, as well as those more loosely derived from his novels and poems. ‘’Guy Mannering’’ and ‘’Rob Roy’’ represent the most popular titles reflected in the playbills. Barbara Bell’s original encoding of the playbills allows for research into the various titles based on Scott’s works and how those works were transformed by adaptations. For example, Daniel Terry’s popular adaption, ‘’Guy Mannering; or The Gipsy’s Prophecy’’ is well-represented in the collection, perhaps hinting at the importance of the characters of Meg Merrilies and Dandie Dinmont within adaptations of Scott’s second novel. Performances were sometimes based on single works, whereas others were combinations of scenes from various Scott titles. First night performances of works, such as the 25 January 1820 Covent Garden production of Terry’s adaptation of The Antiquary are also found within the collection.

Individuals

At the heart of the Waverley section of the Henderson Collection is Sir Walter Scott himself. Yet the numerous individuals from playwrights to composers to performers who brought his works to the dramatic stage were often integral to the success of particular productions. Adaptations by the playwright Daniel Terry for ‘’Guy Mannering’’ are prevalent throughout the collection, illustrating his close association with Scott and his works. Others, such as Thomas Dibdin and Isaac Pocock, and the English composer Henry Bishop, are also well-represented, as are works composed by Donizetti and Berlioz.

The performances of Scott’s work presented a who’s who of dramatic actors and actresses from the British and Scottish theater. Prominent throughout the collection are depictions by noted performers such as Henry Siddons, Harriet Siddons, Charles Kemble, Lucia Vestris, Thomas P. Cooke, and Julia Nicol, Charles Mackay, among others.

Where casts and/or songs from a performance mirrored those from earlier dates in that performance’s run, Bell indicated these duplicates by using “As in” or “See” and the referenced date of performance in place of a re-listing of the cast or song. Searches for particular individuals or songs across performances should bear this in mind.

Special Features of Playbills

Various qualitative aspects of specific performances are included in the SPEC field as outlined by Barbara Bell. Information contained within this field provides a view into the value placed upon certain aspects of individual performances as well as the larger repertoire of Scott’s works by theater managers, performers, and audiences. According to Bell, the field includes material coded for access, including benefit performances and visits by royalty and visiting foreign leaders. At least two performances held in honor of Scott around the time of his death (bills W12:127 and W15:97) are found in the Waverley Henderson Collection. The information contained in the notes field also allows for investigation of other forms of entertainment found on British stages of the nineteenth century, such as equestrian performances. Issues of race and ethnicity are seen in the presentation of a play (W4:38) in which “Native American Indian warriors,” actual members of the Seneca nation, performed, and a performance by the “Negro melodist” Piccaninny Colman (W10:129R), performing in blackface.

Production of finding aid and plans for future databases

Thanks to receipt of a Fulbright Fellowship by Molly Anne Rothenberg, Professor of English at Tulane University, Bell’s work was transformed to electronic text in 2014 in order to create a finding aid hosted by the Folger Shakespeare Library. Plans are underway to transform the finding aid into an electronic database on which complex analyses can be performed. This database will then serve as the template for the conversion of the Bell printout of all Scottish adaptations of Scott, currently held at the University of Glasgow.

Encoding and presentation of the information derived from individual playbills within the Henderson Collection will allow for a dynamic analysis of varied points of access for researchers. As opposed to a traditional electronic finding aid focusing on the arrangement and description of the collection contents, or handlists and catalogues compiled by scholars such as H. Philip Bolton and Richard Ford, the goal of the database design is its use as a research tool that will allow for the generation of aggregated data and sophisticated analysis. The database of the Waverley playbills provides the means for examination of the various fields of information contained within the playbills and allows for the identification and interpretation of trends and patterns across the various fields.

Dr. Bell has published some of her analyses of the complete collection, produced before her database was lost; in these articles, the power of analyses of such aggregated data becomes visible, making clear the importance of reproducing the original database.

Acknowledgments

The Folger Shakespeare Library granted Professor Molly Anne Rothenberg readership in fall 2005, at which time she was introduced to the Henderson collection and the Bell printout by then Curator of Art and Special Collections, Erin Blake. In 2014, Professor Rothenberg dedicated some of her funding from the Weiss Presidential Fellowship for Undergraduate Teaching at Tulane University to creating an electronic version of the Bell printout, as a thank-you gift to the Folger. With the cooperation of Erin Blake and Eric Johnson at the Folger, Professor Rothenberg initiated a Fulbright Fellowship project to include the production of an online finding aid for the Waverley section of the Henderson collection as well as to establish collaborative ties with the director of the Corson Collection of Walter Scott materials and the Walter Scott Digital Archive, Dr. Paul Barnaby. The successful application to the Fulbright would not have been possible without guidance from Professors Evan Gottlieb (Oregon State University) and Tara Ghoshal Wallace (George Washington University). Professor Rothenberg is extremely grateful to Professor Penny Fielding and her colleagues at the School of Literatures, Languages, and Cultures at the University of Edinburgh for supporting her Fulbright application and providing so many collegial opportunities around the project. She gives special thanks to Dr. Paul Barnaby, editor of the Walter Scott Digital Archive at Edinburgh University Library, for his guidance. We are grateful to the librarians at the National Library of Scotland for their expertise. Patrick Henry, doctoral student at GWU, assisted Professor Rothenberg in the initial survey of the Waverley collection, photographed the Bell printout, established the protocol for producing the finding aid, and began the painstaking work of digitization. Chris Harter, Director of Library and Reference Services at the Amistad Research Center, completed more than half of the digitization and collaborated on the writing of the Folgerpedia article. None of this work would have been possible without the pioneering efforts of Dr. Barbara Bell, who not only performed all of the initial work but also has provided the history of her involvement with the Henderson collection as well as analyses of the data contained therein.

Gallery

Bibliography

The collection was described the brief article "A Library of Old Playbills" in Scottish Notes and Queries for October 1889, pages 76-77.

Notes

<references>

  1. H. Philip Bolton, ‘’Scott Dramatized’’. London: Mansell Publishing, 1992: xi
  2. Barbara Bell. Nineteenth-century Stage Adaptations of the Works of Sir Walter Scott on the Scottish Stage: 1810-1900. An unpublished Ph.D. thesis submitted to Glasgow University, April 1991. Only this printout remains, as a consequence of the loss of the database on the University mainframe computer.
  3. The software used was Famulus77, designed for bibliographic records. The project ran on Glasgow University’s mainframe computer, an ICL3980. Today a laptop could perform the same functions.
  4. Bell, pp. 7-8