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The town of Dunstable is not too far away from here in Chesham, just over half an hour’s pleasant drive through the northern part of the Chilterns, near where I grew up and past the wonderful Ivinghoe Beacon (the name of which is the source for Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe). While not a Buckinghamshire book, I […]

‘Without a play-bill’, stated The Tatler in September 1830, ‘no true play-goer can be comfortable.  If the performers are new to him, he cannot dispense with knowing who they are: if old, there are the names of the characters to learn, and the relationships of the dramatis personæ: and if he is acquainted with all […]

This book (a first edition, privately printed on the Royal estate at Windsor) describes itself as ‘The gift of the Queen, to her beloved daughters, Charlotte Aug: Matilda.  Augusta Sophia.  Elizabeth.  Mary.  And Sophia.  And with Her Majesty’s permission dedicated to their Royal Highnesses by the Translator Ellis Cornelia Knight’ (p. [3]).  Cornelia Knight (1757–1837)—novelist, poet, […]

One of the items in my recent Theatre list is this playbill, which advertises an important performance of Romeo and Juliet in 1832. If you look closely, you will see that the role of Romeo, ‘for this night only’, was taken by Ellen Tree (1805–1880; Kean as she subsequently became, on her marriage to the […]

Yesterday I published my annual summer Theatre list, and I thought I would share here details of one of the items featured. It is a series of etchings published to commemorate the first Cambridge Greek Play, from 1883. ‘The tradition of performing a Greek play in Cambridge goes back to 1882, when the very first […]

I was born and bred in Buckinghamshire (tomorrow in fact will be Buckinghamshire Day) and my family, on my mother’s side, has roots in the county going back well into the eighteenth century, if not earlier. So, as one might imagine, I have an interest in books relating to the county. I have written before […]