James Robinson Planché (1796–1880) was a man of varied talents: on the one hand, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, instrumental in the founding of the British Archaeological Association, Rouge Croix Pursuivant of Arms and later Somerset Herald, author of books on heraldry, A History of British Costumes (1834) and A Cyclopaedia of Costume (1876–9); on the other hand a practical man of the theatre—musician, designer, translator and adapter of many plays from the French, and author of innumerable pantomimes, burlesques, burlettas, melodramas and other stage works. His output was prodigious; but scarcely a line of it is remembered. If we hear anything that he wrote, it is as likely as not to be in the German translation of his libretto for Weber’s opera Oberon. True, he has his place in theatrical history; but he is remembered less for his original writing than as a campaigner for reasonable copyright laws for the protection of the rights of librettists and playwrights, and as the man whose work on the history of costume had a profound influence on the staging of Shakespeare and other ‘historical’ dramatists. His best work for the stage is undoubtedly in the forty-four extravaganzas, published in a Testimonial Edition in 1879. A number of writers have demonstrated W. S. Gilbert’s indebtedness to these works, but Planché was a Gilbert without a Sullivan.