19th Century London Stage: The Databases

The 10th Century London Stage Databases

The study is supported by several Excel databases. Many are redundant, sorting the same material on a different field.

Most are richly annotated, containing the following fields:

Author	Gender of author	Title of Play	Subtitle	Genre
Date of Publication	Place of Publication	Publisher	Produced by
First performed (date)	Produced at (theatre)	Date	Cast	Picture number
Scenery by	Costumes by	Comments	Citations

Two files contain alphabetized lists of authors, titles and publishers, without further annotation.

A series of 8-10 spreadsheets contain fully annotated data, sorted in a variety of ways.

There is a databases of articles dealing with the Commedia dell'arte and a bibliography of articles and books whose subject matter is the Industrial Revolution and magic. Where books are indexed call numbers are given for identification and in some instances the University of Washington library location is given as well.

The source of articles is indicated by a "Journal Code," the key for which has not been located. However, many can be deduced fairly easily: e.g., "SA" for Scientific American, "THN" for Theatre Notebook, etc.

The "Magic" database references stage lighting, illusion and scenic effects. The Illusion of Vanity Fair at the Olympia" (1896 (Scientific American) to "Luminous Fountains for Dining Tables" (1891 Scientific American) and "Imprvements in Oil Lamps" (1853 Scientific American.)

Lastly, there are two databases which contain the numbers of all the engravings and drawings in the collection, arranged in numerical order. These become an excellent tool for quickly associating illustrations with the plays texts from which they have been taken.