UNL Libraries | Archives & Special Collections

PROMPT BOOKS AND ACTORS

The University Libraries holds several original prompt books from the personal collection of Sir Augustus Harris (1851-1896), who was producer at Drury Lane Theatre (from 1879) and manager of Covent Garden Opera House (from 1888). The prompt books are dated between 1773 and 1822 and document the performance of several Shakespeare plays at the Theatres Royal, Covent Garden, and Drury Lane.

The plays represented by the prompt books include Comedy of Errors, King Henry IV, King Henry V, King Henry VIII, King Lear, Measure for Measure, Merry Wives of Windsor, Romeo and Juliet, and Timon of Athens. The prompt books include many handwritten stage directions and production notes.

Actors involved in the plays relating to the prompt books include the brothers James William Wallack and Henry John Wallack, John Philip Kemble, among several other prominent names. More information about these individuals is found at the Encyclopedia Britannica's "Shakespeare and the Globe, Then and Now."

Timon of Athens : a tragedy / altered from Shakespeare London : Printed for John Bell, 1773.

Shakespearian Actor John P. Kemble in Timon of Athens. This image is taken from a 1770s version of Bell's edition of Shakespeare's plays : as they are now performed at the Theatres Royal in London : regulated from the prompt books of each house by permission with notes critical and illustrative by the authors of the dramatic censor

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet : a tragedy / adapted to the stage by David Garrick ; revised by J.P. Kemble; and published as it is acted at the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden. London : Printed for the Theatre, 1811.