Certain changes in entire scenes have been indicated in the notes. To have indicated also all the changes made in the acting version of 1882 would have led to confusion, but some of the most important alterations have been mentioned in the notes. The acting version was corrected by Boker so that "Paolo" should be pronounced as two syllables. These corrections have been followed, but in those portions of the play which were omitted on the stage, Boker made no corrections. There are in consequence certain inconsistencies in the text so far as the pronunciation of this word is concerned but the editor has naturally left the lines as Boker wrote them.
Francesca was the last of Boker's plays to be actually performed. There is an autograph manuscript of a play, The Bankrupt, dated 1853, which is a prose melodrama, laid apparently in Philadelphia in 1850, and which is the poorest of all the plays. Königsmark, published in 1869 but written probably before 1857, is a closet play laid in Hanover in 1694. In 1885 and 1886, encouraged by the revival of Francesca da Rimini, Boker wrote two plays on the same theme, Nydia and Glaucus. They were written probably for Mr. Barrett, though they were never played, and are based on the Last Days of Pompeii of Bulwer. They are, however, entirely original in expression and contain some of the best verse that Boker wrote.
Boker's public career was a distinguished one. From 1871 to 1875 he was Minister to Turkey and from 1875 to 1878 Minister to Russia. He took an active part on the Union side during the war, his poetry, such as "The Black Regiment" and the "Dirge for a Soldier" being representative. He died in Philadelphia, January 2, 1890.
Boker's plays and poems were published in two volumes in 1856 and were reprinted in 1857, 1883, and 1891. This collected edition contains Calaynos, Anne Boleyn, Leonor de Guzman, Francesca da Rimini, The Betrothal, and The Widow's Marriage. Köningsmark was published in 1869 and Francesca da Rimini has been republished in a popular edition. The other plays exist in manuscript in the possession of Mrs. George Boker of Philadelphia, to whose courtesy the editor is indebted for an opportunity to collate the manuscripts. Among these manuscripts is included biographical material and information concerning the plays on which this introduction is based. An interesting contemporary criticism by Charles Godfrey Leland is to be found in Sartain's Magazine, Vol. YIII (1851), pp. 369-78. See also R. H. Stoddard, George Henry Boker, Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XLV (1890), p. 856; C. G. Leland, George Henry Boker, The American, Vol. XIX (1890), p. 392; E. P. Oberholtzer, The Literary History of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, 1906, and A. H. Quinn, The Dramas of George Henry Boker, Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, Vol. XXXII, No. 2 (1917).
