http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf1h4n985c No online items John Larpent Plays Processed by Dougald MacMillan in 1939; supplementary encoding and revision by Diann Benti in January 2018. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens Manuscripts Department 1151 Oxford Road San Marino, California 91108 Phone: (626) 405-2191 Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.huntington.org © 2000 The Huntington Library. All rights reserved. John Larpent Plays mssLA 1-2503 1 Overview of the Collection Title: John Larpent Plays Dates (inclusive): 1737-1824 Collection Number: mssLA 1-2503 Creator: Larpent, John, 1741-1824. Extent: 2,503 pieces. Repository: The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. Manuscripts Department 1151 Oxford Road San Marino, California 91108 Phone: (626) 405-2191 Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.huntington.org Abstract: This collection consists of official manuscript copies of plays submitted for licensing in Great Britain between 1737 and 1824 that were in the possession of John Larpent (1741-1824), the examiner of plays, at the time of his death in 1824. The collection includes 2,399 identified plays as well as an additional 104 unidentified pieces including addresses, prologues, epilogues, etc. Language: English. Access Open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department. For more information, contact Reader Services. Publication Rights The Huntington Library does not require that researchers request permission to quote from or publish images of this material, nor does it charge fees for such activities. The responsibility for identifying the copyright holder, if there is one, and obtaining necessary permissions rests with the researcher. Preferred Citation [Identification of item]. John Larpent Plays, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California. Provenance Purchased with the Ellesmere collection from John Francis Granville Scroop Egerton, 3rd Earl of Ellesmere, through the agency of George D. Smith and Sotheby's of London, 1917. Biographical Note on John Larpent John Larpent (1741-1824), after posts in the foreign service and a term as secretary to the Duke of Bedford in Paris and to the Marquis of Hertford in Ireland, was appointed to the position of Examiner of Plays in November 1778. Larpent was assisted in his work by his wife, Anna Margaretta Larpent (1758-1832), whom he married in 1782. Larpent continued as Examiner until his death in 1824. Historical Note The licensing act of 1737 required that copies of all plays and other entertainments designed to be performed on the stage in Great Britain be submitted to the Lord Chamberlain for license fourteen days before their presentation. In order to carry out the provisions of the new law, the office of Examiner of Plays was established, and the first Examiner, William Chetwynd, was appointed on March 10, 1738. Chetwynd acted almost entirely through deputies: first Thomas Odell (1738-1749) and second Edward Capell (1749-1781). At the time of Chetwynd's death on April 3, 1770, apparently no successor was designated; and Capell acted as Examiner until the appointment of John Larpent on November 20, 1778. Larpent died in office on January 18, 1824. The official copies of plays submitted to the Examiner of Plays between 1737 and January 1824, in Larpent's possession at the time of his death, were bought by John Payne Collier and Thomas Amyot around 1832 and later purchased by Francis Egerton (1800-1857), Viscount Brackley and 1st Earl of Ellesmere, in 1853. During the years that he owned the collection, Collier referred to it twice in published articles in the New Monthly Magazine, XXXIV (1832), in "The Poetical and Literary Career of the Late John Philip Kemble" (page 174), and "New Facts Regarding Garrick and his Writings" (page 568). In January 1854, there was an announcement in the Athenaeum that the collection had been purchased by the Earl of Ellesmere. The plays had been offered, the notice continued, "to the Trustees of the British Museum, who declined to purchase them; they will, therefore, form a distinguishing feature in the library of his Lordship's new mansion in the Green Park, and no doubt will be accessible to all who wish to consult the plays for literary John Larpent Plays mssLA 1-2503 2 and historical purposes." After being purchased by the Earl of Ellesmere in 1853, the collection was incorporated into the Bridgewater House Library, where the plays (Numbers 1-2399) were bound in blue paper covers, neatly labeled, and shelved in boxes of four sizes (designated Large, Extra, Middle, and Small). Within the sizes, the arrangement was roughly chronological. Content lists were added to the spines of the boxes, and the boxes were stamped "Larpent Dramatic MSS." In addition, there were three scrapbook volumes (later disbound) containing occasional prologues and epilogues, addresses, and undated or unidentified short pieces (Numbers 2400-2502). The plays remained part of the library of Bridgewater House for sixty-three years before being acquired as part of the Bridgewater Library/Egerton Family Papers by Henry E. Huntington in 1917. The collection went largely unnoticed in published sources until well into the 20th century. An 1857 query in Notes and Queries (2d Ser., IV, 269) mentioned the supposed existence of the collection and requested information about its location. In his biographical sketch of Larpent in the Dictionary of National Biography, W. A. J. Archbold stated, "Larpent is said ... to have left behind him manuscript copies of all the plays submitted to the inspector from 1737 to 1824." Nor were the Larpent plays mentioned in the account of the Bridgewater Sale to Henry E. Huntington in 1917 by W. N. C. Carlton in Notes on the Bridgewater House Library (New York: privately printed, 1918). Finally in 1927, the collection was referenced in Allardyce Nicoll's A History of Late Eighteenth Century Drama, and it was described as the defining feature of the Bridgewater House Library in its later period by George Sherburn in an account of Huntington Library Collections in the Huntington Library Bulletin, (Number 1, May, 1931, pp. 49-50). Processing information This finding aid is based primarily on the Catalogue of the Larpent plays in the Huntington Library (San Marino, Calif., 1939) compiled by Dougald MacMillan, Professor of English at the The University of North Carolina. MacMillan was assisted by Marion Tinling and Dorothy Bowen, and other members of the staff of the Huntington Library. The principal task of the compilers of the Catalogue was to identify the plays, and secondly to compare the manuscript and printed texts, chiefly through the comparison of the Larpent manuscripts and the Kemble-Devonshire collection of English plays. Digitized materials This collection is digitized in the subscription database: "Eighteenth Century Drama: Censorship, Society and the Stage" (Adam Matthew Digital). In the Huntington Library • The Kemble-Devonshire collection of English plays is a collection of nearly 4,500 printed plays that have been individually cataloged in the Huntington Library's Online Catalog and most can be searched by the keyword phrase: "Kemble-Devonshire copy" • Anna Margaretta Larpent diaries, 1773-1830. (Call number: mssHM 31201, Volumes 1-17) • Larpent dramatic manuscripts catalogue, 1737-1824. (Call number: mssEL 26 B 11) • Two license books of John Larpent, 1801-1824 (Call number: mssHM 19926) • Baker, David Erskine, 1730-1767. Biographia dramatica ... (London : Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown [etc.], 1812) (Call number: 13729). Note: John Payne Collier's copy, with his annotations and notes by the sixth Duke of Devonshire. • Baker, David Erskine, 1730-1767. Biographia dramatica ... (London : Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown [etc.], 1812) (Call number: 134273). Note: Kemble-Devonshire copy. It contains manuscript notes by Kemble, with some additions by the Duke of Devonshire, mostly titles, etc., of plays in the Kemble-Devonshire Collection of Plays published after the Biographia Dramatica appeared and therefore not listed therein. This copy apparently served Kemble, and later the Duke, as a catalogue to his collection of plays, as it gives the number of the volume, in that collection, in which each play may be found. • Larpent, John, 1741-1824. An alphabetical catalogue with notes of theatrical representations &ca, approximately 1787 Scope and Content This collection consists of official manuscript copies of plays submitted for licensing between 1737 and 1824 that were in the possession of John Larpent, the examiner of plays, at the time of his death in 1824. These copies were later owned by John Payne Collier before being purchased by the Bridgewater House Library. The collection includes 2,399 identified plays as well as an additional 104 unidentified pieces including addresses, prologues, epilogues, etc. These copies of plays, generally, were clearly written by professional copyists attached to the theaters, though some are partly, or entirely, in the authors' handwriting. Most copies are accompanied by a formal application for license to perform, signed by the manager of the theater. The name of the author only rarely appears upon the play, except on title-pages of John Larpent Plays mssLA 1-2503 3 printed copies, submitted instead of manuscripts. Presumably, all new plays performed between June 24, 1737, and January 18, 1824, were licensed as the law required, but Larpent's collection is not entirely complete. The most conspicuous of the plays not now in the Huntington's collection (e.g., The Clandestine Marriage and The School for Scandal) are also not listed in the manuscript Alphabetical Catalogue with Notes of Theatrical representations &ca Submitted for Licensing From The Year 1737, to the Year 1787 inclusive in the handwriting of Larpent and of his second wife (now held by the New York Public Library). Their omission in Larpent's list suggest that these plays were removed from the Examiners' papers before Larpent took office. Others appear to have been either returned to the managers or given away by Larpent or by Collier.