SHAKESPEARE – IRVING'S CORIOLANUS


Marked-up acting copy of Coriolanus, with a covering letter by Henry Irving's business manager, Bram Stoker, to Mr Blake: "Mr Irving desires me to forward with his regards the enclosed copy of Coriolanus prepared as you desire", written on Royal Lyceum Theatre headed paper, 8 September 1880, the copy marked up in what appears to be at least two hands, with very extensive deletions made in red crayon, further deletions in black ink with speeches and stage-directions added in the same ink (one deleted speech reinstated as "in"), plus occasional marks in blue crayon and in pencil; written in a copy of the Longmans edition 'adopted for Schools and Private Study', edited by the Rev John Hunter, new edition, [?1870], Stoker's letter pasted into front inside cover, end-papers dust-stained, some thumbing, etc., but overall in sound internal condition, publishers' blindstamped stiff wrappers, worn, spine lacking, 8vo, [Royal Lyceum Theatre, Strand, 1880]
|'CORIOLANUS PREPARED AS YOU DESIRE' – Henry Irving's first ideas for his production of Coriolanus. He had announced the production from the stage of the Lyceum on 25 July 1879, the concluding night of his first season as actor-manager there, telling his audience: 'I shall occasionally revive some of your old favourites, and so give time for the preparation of one of our master's master-plays – Coriolanus – in the production of which I shall have the invaluable benefit of the research of that gifted painter, Mr. Alma-Tadema' (Austin Brereton, The Life of Henry Irving, 1908, i. p.287). In the event, it was to be so delayed that his production of Coriolanus was not staged until 1901, over two decades later.As far as we can ascertain, the scripts that have survived are otherwise all for the play as it was to be staged in 1901, which makes our script a particularly welcome addition to the canon, and possibly the sole witness to Irving's first ideas as to how the play should be staged. All but one of these surviving scripts utilize the heavily-cut acting edition Irving himself had published by the Chiswick Press in 1901. A set of three marked-up scripts for the 1901 production are in the British Library, consisting of a marked-up proof copy of the 1901 edition, an interleaved and marked-up copy of this edition, plus a duplicate of the latter (BL Add MSS 61996; acquired at Sotheby's, 21 July 1981, lot 423). Comparison between the online illustration provided by the Library and our script reveal marked differences between the two. Shattuck lists three other scripts, Irving's studybook in the Folger Shakespeare Library, again utilizing the 1901 edition, and two of Ellen Terry's studybooks, the first in an edition of 1893, the second in the 1901 edition (The Shakespeare Promptbooks: A Descriptive Catalogue, 1965).Stoker had joined Irving when he took out the Lyceum lease in 1878, remaining by his side as business manager for twenty-seven years, while finding time for his literary work, including Dracula (1897), a work which is widely seen as reflecting some of the daemonic qualities of Irving's theatrical persona.