EMILY ALLEN is Associate Professor of English at Purdue University, USAJACKY BRATTON is Professor of Theatre and Cultural History at Royal Holloway, University of London, UKCATHERINE BURROUGHS is Professor of English at Wells College and Visiting Lecturer in English at Cornell University, USAGILLI BUSH-BAILEY is Senior Lecturer in Drama and Theatre, Royal Holloway, University of London, UKJEFFREY N. COX is Professor of English and of Comparative Literature and Humanities at the University of Colorado at Boulder, USAJIM DAVIS is Professor and Chair in the School of Theatre, Performance and Cultural Policy Studies at the University of Warwick, UKHEIDI J. HOLDER is Professor of English at Central Michigan University, USAJANE MOODY is Professor in the Department of English and Related Literature at the University of York, UKMARK PHELAN is Lecturer in Drama at Queen's University, Belfast, UKTHOMAS POSTLEWAIT is Professor of Theatre History at Ohio State University, USARICHARD SCHOCH is Professor of the History of Culture at Queen Mary, University of London, UKEDWARD ZITER is Associate Professor of Theatre History in the Department of Drama at New York University, USA

• List of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Series Introduction: Redefining British Theatre History; P.Holland Introduction: The Performing Society; T.C.Davis & P.Holland PART I: PERFORMANCE OCCASIONS Boxing Day; J.Davis What Are Faries For?; T.C.Davis Communal Performances: Royal Ritual, Revolution, and National Acts; E.Allen George Edwardes and Musical Comedy: The Transformations of London Theatre and Society, 1878-1914; T.Postlewait PART II: PERFORMANCE ANXIETIES Nation and Neighbourhood, Jews and Englishmen: Location and Theatrical Ideology in the Theatre of Victorian London; H.Holder Theatre History and Capital on the Victorian Stage; J.Moody Modernity, Geography and Historiography: (Re)-Mapping Irish Theatre History on the Nineteenth Century; M.Phelan PART III: REPERTOIRES The Death of Tragedy; or, the Birth of Melodrama; J.N.Cox Fitting the Bill: Acting out the Season of 1813/14 at the Sans Pareil; G.Bush-Bailey Charles Mathews, Low Comedian, and the Intersections of Romantic Ideology; E.Ziter The Persistence of Closet Drama: Theory, History, Form; C.Burroughs Shakespeare and the Music Hall; R.Schoch What is a Play? Drama and the Victorian Circus; J.Bratton Index

'The Performing Century: Nineteenth-Century Theatre's History is a fine collection of essays, and unlike some other such collections is likely to be of lasting value.' - Early Popular Visual Culture 'This collection of essays marks the distance travelled in the last two decades in scholarship on nineteenth-century theatre. Thirteen essays, collectively and individually, weave history and historiography together in what are uniformly exemplary demonstrations of 'new theatre history'. The volume also reminds us that it is in this formerly most maligned of theatre-historic fields that some of the most interesting, innovative and critically engaged work is being done.' - Katherine Newey, Theatre Research International