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Thomas Forrest's Pseudonym in The Disappointment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2010

Paul Sorrentino
Affiliation:
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Extract

Although critics generally agree that Thomas Forrest wrote The Disappointment; or, the Force of Credulity (1767; rev. ed. 1796), no one has explained the significance of his pseudonym, Andrew Barton. Were the play typical of early American drama, the matter of authorship would be relatively unimportant; but because The Disappointment has historical, cultural and literary value, the pseudonym deserves attention.

Type
Notes and Documents
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1982

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References

NOTES

1 For a discussion of authorship and the play's significance, see Barton, Andrew, The Disappointment; or, the Force of Credulity, ed. Mays, David (Gainesville, Florida: The Univ. Presses of Florida, 1976).Google Scholar References in the text are to this edition. Although Mays cites what little scholarship exists on the play, see also Meserve, Walter J., An Emerging Entertainment: The Drama of the American People to 1828 (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1977), pp. 5153Google Scholar, which appeared after Mays's edition.

2 For the text of “Sir Andrew Barton” and commentary on it, see Child, Francis James, ed., The English and Scottish Ballads (18881989; rpt. New York: Dover, 1965), III, 334–50.Google Scholar