Dramatica to the work of Reed and Jones issued in 1812,
Downes to Roscius Anglicanus ( 1709), Wright to Historia
Histrionica ( 1699), Genest to Some Account of the English
Stage ( 1832), Ward to the History of English Dramatic
Literature ( 1899). These works are so well known to students
of the theatre that they seemed to require no further comment.

The hand-list of Restoration plays given in Appendix C is,
as I have indicated there, a condensed account based on a
larger bibliography which I have in preparation. Some half
a dozen editions mentioned I have not been able to see, and
these I have indicated by a question mark. They no doubt
exist; but the bibliography of this period has been so confused
in the past by the careless copying of careless early chrono-
logers of the stage that I did not wish to perpetuate in any
way facts which might, after all, be wrong.

Quotations are usually from original editions, although
a few are taken from later reprints, where these differed in
no essentials from the primal text. As in this work quota-
tions are employed merely to illustrate a general or a par-
ticular thesis, it has not been thought necessary to pay such
exact attention to the original forms as would be required in
the editing of a writer's works. In every case, however, the
reading of the quotations has been compared with that of the
first editions. These remarks do not apply, of course, to the
excerpts from the Lord Chamberlain's documents, in which
I have endeavoured to reproduce faithfully the precise text
of the manuscripts.

In the somewhat arduous task of gathering materials I have
to thank several persons. The officials of the British Museum
and of the Public Record Office, by their courtesy and
helpfulness, frequently made my toil the lighter, and there are
others to whom my debt of gratitude is equally great. This
work, however, would probably never have seen the light
had it not been for the encouragement and assistance of
my wife, to whom my debt is immeasurably greatest.

A. N.

September, 1923.

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