E-text prepared by the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (http://archive.org) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 39617-h.htm or 39617-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/39617/pg39617-images.html) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/39617/39617-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See http://archive.org/details/curiositiesofame00huttuoft [Illustration: JUNIUS BRUTUS BOOTH.] CURIOSITIES OF THE AMERICAN STAGE by LAURENCE HUTTON Author of "Plays and Players" etc., etc. Illustrated New York Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square 1891 Copyright, 1890, by Harper & Brothers. All rights reserved. TO BRANDER MATTHEWS _THESE_ _THE ARGUMENT._ This book, as its name implies, is a series of chapters from the annals of the American Theatre; and it considers Plays and Players more particularly in their less familiar aspects. It does not pretend to be critical; and the greatest care has been taken to verify all the facts it contains (many of them here presented for the first time), in order that it may appeal to the small but select band of specialists known as Dramatic Collectors, as well as to those influential members of the community who are glad to call themselves Old Play-goers. The chapters upon "The American Stage Negro," upon "The American Burlesque," and upon a "A Century of American Hamlets," appeared originally in HARPER'S MAGAZINE; the others have been printed, in part, in other periodicals, but as now published they have all been rewritten, elaborated, and extended. The portraits with which the volume is enriched are in many instances very rare, and some of them, never engraved before, have been prepared especially for this work. They are from the collections of Mr. J. H. V. Arnold, Dr. B. E. Martin, Mr. Thomas J. McKee, Mr. C. C. Moreau, Mr. Evart Jansen Wendell, and The Players, to all of whom the author here expresses his sincere thanks. A double Index--personal as well as local--makes the book easily available for reference; and it will lend itself readily to extra illustration. It is intended to instruct as well as to entertain. LAURENCE HUTTON. THE PLAYERS, 1890. _DRAMATIS PERSONAE._ PAGE Junius Brutus Booth _Frontispiece_ G. W. P. Custis 9 Edwin Forrest 11 John McCullough 15 Major Andre 21 J. H. Hackett 27 Frank Mayo as Davy Crockett 33