Definition

In 1806, playwright, novelist, and retired actor Elizabeth Inchbald (née Simpson 1753–1821) was commissioned to write 125 critical prefaces for a collection of plays titled The British Theatre. The collection was initially released serially over a span of 2 years before being published in a 25-volume edition in 1808. Inchbald’s prefaces marked the most substantial theatrical criticism ever to be written by a woman, and the commercial success of the collection confirmed her reputation as England’s preeminent woman dramatist and judge of theatrical taste. At the time, literary criticism was considered a uniquely masculine pursuit, and Inchbald’s criticism is therefore notable for offering a woman’s insider perspective on theatre-making. Playwright George Colman the Younger, whose plays featured heavily in The British Theatre, took issue with a woman criticizing his work and sent a disparaging letter to her publisher that was later printed in the collection alongside Inchbald’s own letter of defense, in which she wittily mocks Colman’s arrogance and chauvinism. The British Theatre marked the last major project of Inchbald’s impressive career in the theatre.

Introduction

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Elizabeth Inchbald (née Simpson), England’s foremost woman dramatist, was invited by publisher Thomas Norton Longman and his partners to write a series of critical prefaces for a collection of 125 acting plays (see “Inchbald [née Simpson], Elizabeth” and “Theatre”). The series, impressively titled The British Theatre; or, A Collection of Plays, Which Are Acted at the Theatres Royal, Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and Haymarket. Printed Under the Authority of the Managers, From the Prompt Books, With Biographical and Critical Remarks, by Mrs. Inchbald, was initially published serially between 1806 and 1808 before its release as a 25-volume collected edition in 1808. Due to the frequency of the serial publication – a new play was released weekly – Inchbald assumed the constant labor of writing, editing, copying, and correcting her remarks over a span of 2 years. Each of the prefaces is two to four pages in length, introduces salient details about the play, provides background on the playwrights and performers – many of whom Inchbald knew personally – and assesses the play’s merit in both literary and theatrical terms. The result is a unique combination of Inchbald’s literary, theatrical, and cultural insights.

The Plays

As The British Theatre proudly advertised in its title, the plays included were based on the prompt copies of popular plays in repertory at London’s patent theatres: Drury Lane, Covent Garden, and the Haymarket. The serial publication of the plays appeared in no particular order, and some purchasers chose to bind the plays themselves in various arrangements (Macheski 1990, 12). In the collected edition of 1808, however, the plays were placed in sequence by chronology and author, though they remained individually paginated.

William Shakespeare is, by far, the best-represented playwright in the series, with 24 of his plays, and 1 by Ben Jonson, making up the first 5 volumes of the collected edition. In her remarks on these plays, Inchbald adds to a tradition of Shakespeare criticism written by English women like Margaret Cavendish (née Lucas), Elizabeth Montagu (née Robinson), Charlotte Lennox (née Ramsay), and Elizabeth Griffith (née Griffith) (Ritchie 2014, 103) (see “Montagu [née Robinson], Elizabeth” and “Essay on the Writings and Genius of Shakespeare, An by Elizabeth Montagu”). Plays by other early modern and Restoration-era dramatists receive attention in volumes six to nine, but the bulk of The British Theatre is devoted to plays of the eighteenth century, particularly the latter half of the century.

Five of Inchbald’s own plays appear in the 23rd volume of the collection, making her one of the most represented playwrights in the series behind only Shakespeare and George Colman the Younger – 8 of whose plays appear – and tied with Richard Cumberland. In a testament to Inchbald’s uncontested standing as England’s top woman playwright, only five plays by three other women appear in the collection: three by Susanna Centlivre (née Freeman), two by Hannah Cowley (née Parkhouse), and one by Joanna Baillie (see “Baillie, Joanna”). Inchbald’s comments on the plays of these women are generally positive; she deems Baillie’s De Monfort “a work of genius” (Inchbald 1808, 24:3), and, in her remarks for The Busy Body (1709), she praises Centlivre’s contributions to the profession (Inchbald 1808, 11:3–6) (see “De Monfort by Joanna Baillie”).

Inchbald’s Critical Voice

Having learned to read at home, Inchbald could not write the same sort of literary criticism that a formal education in the classics afforded male critics. Instead, like the criticism of Anna Lætitia (also Letitia) Barbauld (née Aikin) for the 50-volume The British Novelists (1810), Inchbald’s criticism targeted a broad audience – in this case the regular playgoer – rather than educated literary elites (Waters 2004, 67) (see “Barbauld [née Aikin], Anna Lætitia [also Letitia]”). Inchbald differentiated between the experiences of reading and watching (Carlson 2000, 210); the live audiences’ enthusiasm for a performance, expressed through tears, laughter, and applause, were as crucial for Inchbald as the play’s literary merits. She drew on her unique first-hand experiences as an actor and playwright to analyze stagecraft and assess a play’s performability. For example, she writes of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale (1611) that it is a play better in “perusal than in representation” (Inchbald 1808, 3:3).

Consistent with early nineteenth-century sensibility, Inchbald paid close attention to a play’s moral teaching. She was quick to condemn the risqué quality of Restoration and early eighteenth-century comedies, writing in her remarks for Centlivre’s A Bold Stroke for Wife (1718), “there was no restraint, as at this period, upon the immorality of the stage” (Inchbald 1808, 11:3). She is particularly reproachful of George Farquhar and writes disapprovingly of The Beaux’ Stratagem (1707), chastizing its “unrestrained contempt of principle which pervades every scene” (Inchbald 1808, 8:4). As a rare woman playwright, Inchbald likely felt a need to distance herself from bawdy playwrights of the past in order to protect her own reputation, but it would be incorrect to characterize her criticism as puritanical. In the remarks for one of her own plays, Lovers’ Vows (1798) – an adaptation of August von Kotzebue’s Das Kind der Liebe (1790) – she launches into a defense of unmarried mothers and their illegitimate children (Inchbald 1808, 23:7–9) (see “Lovers’ Vows from German by Elizabeth Inchbald”).

Reception

The British Theatre was commercially successful in both its serial format and in the collected edition (Robertson 2013, 161–62). However, not everyone was delighted by Inchbald’s remarks. George Colman the Younger, playwright and manager of the Haymarket Theatre, took issue with Inchbald’s criticism of his work and wrote a letter to her publisher that mocked her unlearned and unfeminine venture into the masculine tradition of literary criticism. In the letter, he takes issue with Inchbald’s perceived ingratitude toward his father, George Colman the Elder, and rejects her analysis – largely complimentary – of his own plays. Inchbald, warned of Colman’s displeasure from her publisher, carefully prepared a written response over a period of weeks (Jenkins 2003, 484). She did not respond to his insulting attack with matching vitriol; instead, she adopted a sarcastic tone, apologizing for the mere “cursory remarks of a female” (Inchbald 1808, 21:v) and thereby mocking Colman’s arrogance, sexism, and bad temper. Both letters were published in The British Theatre alongside Colman’s play The Heir at Law (1797), Inchbald pointedly noting that “taste seems wanting” in it (Inchbald 1808, 21:4). While Inchbald may have won the spat, her first biographer, James Boaden, sided with Colman when he wrote, “[t]here is something unfeminine in a lady placing herself in the seat of judgement” (Boaden 1833, 2:84).

Despite prejudicial attitudes toward women writing literary criticism, the financial success of The British Theatre spurred Longman and his partners to publish two additional collections associated with Inchbald: A Collection of Farces and Afterpieces (1809), published in seven volumes, and The Modern Theatre (1811), published in ten volumes. These collections capitalized on Inchbald’s fame by prominently featuring her name and advertising that she had selected the plays. However, no additional commentary by Inchbald was included, perhaps because she was disheartened by the sexist attacks against her or because she realized she could charge the same amount without having to undertake another laborious project (Waters 2004, 64).

Summary

The British Theatre was the last large writing project of Inchbald’s career. She wrote a number of essays on literary matters for the periodical The Artist beginning in 1807, but in 1808, she declined to write for the Quarterly Review and, in 1809, to edit La Belle Assemblée, a women’s literary periodical. Her remarks for The British Theatre helped establish an English theatrical canon and secured her reputation as a trusted arbiter of theatrical taste. Today, scholars continue to rely on The British Theatre for crucial insight into the theatrical culture of the Romantic period.

Cross-References