In separate introductions and explanatory notes that contextualize the plays in terms of the British Jacobins, as well as the London theatre scene and the slave trade controversy, the editors do a fine job demonstrating this fact to their readers. There is no denying their contribution to the history of English (political) drama and theatre, a fact which alone justifies the editors' decision to save these plays from the dusty archives of august libraries. Meticulously edited and researched (the "Major Textual Variants" sections document the changes Thelwall made in holograph to both plays as late as 1814), this book will help future scholars not only to reposition Thelwall within the British literary canon but also to reconsider a British theatre in radical transition.
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