Reproduction of the original: Theatrical and Circus Life by John J. Jennings

A study of pre-Civil War American theatre.

Moving nimbly between literary and historical texts, Monica Flegel provides a much-needed interpretive framework for understanding the specific formulation of child cruelty popularized by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) in the late nineteenth century. Flegel considers a wide range of well-known and more obscure texts from the mid-eighteenth century to the early twentieth, including philosophical writings by Locke and Rousseau, poetry by Coleridge, Blake, and Caroline Norton, works by journalists and reformers like Henry Mayhew and Mary Carpenter, and novels by Frances Trollope, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and Arthur Morrison. Taking up crucial topics such as the linking of children with animals, the figure of the child performer, the relationship between commerce and child endangerment, and the problem of juvenile delinquency, Flegel examines the emergence of child abuse as a subject of legal and social concern in England, and its connection to earlier, primarily literary representations of endangered children. With the emergence of the NSPCC and the new crime of cruelty to children, new professions and genres, such as child protection and social casework, supplanted literary works as the authoritative voices in the definition of social ills and their cure. Flegel argues that this development had material effects on the lives of children, as well as profound implications for the role of class in representations of suffering and abused children. Combining nuanced close readings of individual texts with persuasive interpretations of their influences and limitations, Flegel's book makes a significant contribution to the history of childhood, social welfare, the family, and Victorian philanthropy.

Consists of "accessions" and "books in foreign languages".

Equestrian Drama: An Anthology of Plays is a collection of four representative equestrian dramas. It includes four annotated plays: Timour the Tartar by Matthew G. Lewis, The Battle of Waterloo by J. H. Amherst, Mazeppa by Henry M. Milner, and The Whip by Henry Hamilton and Cecil Raleigh. An introduction precedes the collection, providing the information necessary to understand and contextualize the genre and the plays as both written and performance texts, and within the time period of their original productions, as well as within the larger histories of theatre and equestrian entertainments. Additional related plays are identified, excerpted, and explored, providing readers with a wide range of examples to better understand the development and significance of this unique form of popular theatre. Also identified and explored are significant contributions made to stage technology and design by the patented stage machinery designed for the production of the mechanized form of equestrian drama, which became popular in the late nineteenth century. Equestrian Drama is suitable for undergraduate, graduate, and professional students in theatre history, dramatic literature, performance studies, and equine studies. An online supplement to this book is available to provide readers with additional content relating to this collection, including original English language translations of La Fille Hussard and Rognolet and Passe-Carreau, as well as the full annotated text of Turpin's Ride to York.