Author: JACKSON (John):
Title: The History of the Scottish Stage, from its first establishment to the present time; With a Distinct Narrative of some Recent Theatrical Transactions. The whole necessarily interspersed with Memoirs of his Own life, by John Jackson, ten years manager at the Theatre Royal of Edinburgh.
Description: Edinburgh: Printed for Peter Hill, and G. G. J. and J. Robinson..., London, 1793. FIRST EDITION. 8vo, pp. xiv, [15 - 16 [17 errata, 18 blank], 424, 41 [42 blank], including half-title, contemporary calf, red morocco label; joints neatly restored. A very good copy. Jackson's involvement with the Edinburgh theatre began with his acting debut in 1761 and terminated, after his second term as manager, about 1809. A vain and sometimes unscrupulous man, Jackson (1729/30 - 1806) made a better manager than an actor; though one might regard his financially frustrated bid (following the success of his opening season in Edinburgh) to work together the theatres of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, and Aberdeen, as a measure of his vanity rather than his entrepreneurial capabilities. However, his tenure as manager was nothing if not eventful and witnessed "one of the most extraordinary cases of persecution that ever disgraced a theatrical audience" (Dibdin), namely, the unprovoked and otiose attacks upon the actor Fennell, which resulted in his published account of the affair, an account corroborated by Jackson when he retired from the Edinburgh stage. Jackson also provides an account of the events leading up to the birth of the legal theatre in Scotland--a sequence of events which saw some actual conflict in the theatre stalls as well as a fierce pamphlet war over the grant of patent. The eventual victor in that dispute, David Ross, whose own integrity may not have been perfect, became the first manager of the Edinburgh Theatre Royal; from him, Jackson acquired the patent in 1781 "on advantageous terms." The controversies did not end here, as one may seen from that part of the above volume devoted to the "Statement of facts, explanatory of the dispute between John Jackson and Stephen Kemble, relative to the Theatre Royal of Edinburgh" (Lowe Arnott and Robinson 1954), which had been issued separately and in advance of Jackson's History, "to give an early statement of Jackson's arguments in the quarrel between Kembel and himself" (Lowe). Dibdin terms Jackson's History "that most pompous and inaccurate work," but its account - biased and instructive in about equal parts - provides a unique insight into a turbulent period of Scottish theatre. This issue conforms to the description in ESTC T36525, viz., "In this issue, the text on pp.295-296, beginning on p.295, line 11, and ending at the foot of p.296 is present; the documents numbered xviii-xxii are removed from the appendix by the partial resetting of sig.2e4 and by cancelling leaves 2f1-3; signature *Mm4 appears to be a whole-sheet cancel."

Keywords: Drama Scottish Enlightenment prose


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