PREFACE
This volume is the realization of a long-cherished desire to bring together in a form convenient to readers and students of the drama a number of representative American plays. It is the first attempt to include in one collection a series of plays which illustrate the development of our native drama from its beginning to the present day. No other branch of our native literature has been so inaccessible. The work of the elder playwrights is preserved largely in rare editions or in manuscript and that of the newer generation has frequently remained unpublished through considerations of a nature which fortunately obtain less and less, as the real significance of our drama is becoming better appreciated.
In selecting the plays, the first consideration, obviously, was that they should have been written by native Americans. The only exception to this principle of selection has been made in the case of Dion Boucicault, who is so significant a force in our dramatic history that his inclusion seemed necessary. At the outset also, it was determined that no play should be selected which had not had actual stage representation by a professional company. The closet drama is interesting in its place, but its significance is slight compared to that of the acted play. This consideration, for example, determined the exclusion of the satiric plays of the Revolution, as there is no certain evidence that they were performed even by amateurs. Preference has been given to the plays dealing with native themes, sixteen of the twenty-five plays being laid in this country, while in two others American characters appear. Care has been taken also to include, so far as possible, the principal types of play into which our drama has run, so that if the book is used in connection with a course of lectures upon the American Drama, the material will be at hand to illustrate its development. The comparison of the military plays, André, The Triumph at Plattsburg, Shenandoah, and Secret Service, or of the social comedies, The Contrast, Fashion, Her Great Match and The New York Idea, will be found most interesting, while a contrast between The Prince of Parthia and Francesca da Rimini will illustrate the growth in the field of romantic tragedy where our earlier drama scored so many triumphs. No play, however, has been chosen simply for its interest as a type; all have had to justify themselves on the score of their intrinsic excellence and the difficulty has been to choose among the wealth of material. In the cases of the modern plays, questions of copyright have sometimes interfered to restrict the freedom of choice. It is a matter of regret that
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