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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 July 2009
When Richard Klepac's monograph on Charles Mathews' “At Homes” appeared a few years ago, it addressed a glaring need in early nineteenth-century British theatre history. Mathews, one of the lions of the stage in his era, had been too long neglected, and existing biographies, aside from the two-volume memoir assembled by his wife, consisted of no more than a few puffing pamphlets.
1 Klepac, Richard L., Mr Mathews At Home (London: The Society for Theatre Research, 1979). All further references from this work will be cited parenthetically in the textGoogle Scholar.
2 Mrs. [Anne Jackson] Mathews, Memoirs of Charles Mathews, Comedian. The memoir was originally published in four volumes by R. Bentley of London in 1838–39. It was expanded in the two-volume A Continuation of the Memoirs of Charles Mathews, Comedian, by Mrs. Mathews, including his correspondence and an account of his residence in the United States (Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1839)Google Scholar. The standard two-volume edition, The Life and Correspondence of Charles Mathews, the Elder, Comedian, by Mrs. Mathews (London: Routledge, Warne, and Routledge, 1860) was “a new edition, abridged and condensed by Edmund YatesGoogle Scholar.”
3 See, for example, History of the Private and Public Life of Mr. C. Mathews, Comedian; from his Birth to his Decease, including a Variety of Anecdotes (London: J.V. Quick, n.d.)Google Scholar. Despite the ambitious promise of the title, the work is twelve pages long.
4 The Larpent Catalogue, covering the years up to 1824, lists none of the “At Homes” at all. An examination of the British Library's Daybooks Indexing the Lord Chamberlain's Plays, 1824–1903, reveals that from 1824 until the end of the series of “At Homes” in 1834, there are only three references to any of the “At Homes.” An entry for 1826 shows that the monopolylogue from Invitations was entered on 10 March—but only the monopolylogue. Two of Mathews' last three original “At Homes,” a series which was entitled “Comic Annuals,” are also registered, but the entries show that what was registered was only a “description of” Mathews' Comic Annuals for 1830 (entered on 20 April 1830) and for 1832 (entered on 25 April 1832). No other “At Homes” are mentioned at all in the daybooks, and the three entries cited above list only title and date, with nothing entered into the columns for number of acts, type of play, theatre, etc. I am indebted to N.J. Stanley of Indiana University for help in obtaining this iniformation.
5 Mr Mathews's Trip to America (London: J. Duncombe, n.d.), as reprinted in Klepac, pp. 98–120Google Scholar. Page references to this version are made parenthetically in my text and refer to the pagination in Klepac's reprint, which is, incidentally, mistaken in dating the Duncombe edition from 1821, before the piece was written.
6 Murdoch, James E., The Stage; or, Recollections of Actors and Acting from an Experience of Fifty Years (1880; rpt. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1969), p. 53Google Scholar. Excerpts of contemporaries' reminiscences of Mathews' style in performance are frequently collected in nineteenth-century biographical dictionaries. See, for example, Paine, Henry Gallup, “Charles Mathews,” in The Kembles and their Contemporaries, vol. 2 of Actors and Actresses of Great Britain and the United States, ed. Mathews, Brander and Hutton, Laurence (New York: Cassell and Cassell, 1886), 191–216Google Scholar; Russell, W. Clark, Representative Actors: A Collection of Criticisms, Anecdotes, Personal Descriptions, etc. etc. (London: Frederick Warne, [1872]), 312–319Google Scholar.
7 Mathews At Home; or, Travels in Air, on Earth, and on Water (etc.) (New York: S. King, 1822), reprinted in Klepac, pp. 70–98Google Scholar. In the actual reprinting of the text in Klepac's book, the title is incorrectly rendered as Mathews At Home: or Travels in Air, on Earth and Water, although the citation in his bibliography (p. 65) is accurate. Klepac never justified his selection of this obscure American edition (“Corrected from the Last London Edition, with Additions”), which is strikingly different from virtually all of the major London editions.
8 Mathews At Home; or. Travels in Air, on Earth, and On Water, with all the Comic Songs (A Corrected Edition.) (New York: E.M. Murden, 1822)Google Scholar. The “Polly Packet” monopolylogue is much fuller in this edition than in an earlier edition by the same publisher. None of the Murden editions are listed in Klepac's bibliography.
9 Mr Mathews ‘At Home.’ A Lecture on Characters, Manners, and Peculiarities, Entitled Mr. Mathews' Invitations (etc.), “Duncombe's second, and only correct edition” (London: John Duncombe, n.d.)Google Scholar; Sketches from Mr Mathews's New Entertainment founded on his Observations on Character, Manners and Peculiarities Entitled Invitations, second edition (London: Edward Duncombe, n.d.)Google Scholar; Sketches of Mr Mathews' Invitations: Comprising a Full Account of this Admirable Lecture on Character, Manners, & Peculiarities (etc.) (London: J. Limbird, 1826)Google Scholar; and Mr Mathews's New Entertainment for 1826, called Invitations (etc.) (London: William Cole, n.d.)Google Scholar. Only the John Duncombe first edition and the Limbird edition appear in Klepac's bibliography. Specific references from these editions are cited parenthetically in the text.
10 Both this quotation from The British Stage and Literary Cabinet (vol. 3, 1819)Google Scholar and the subsequent one from the same journal (July, 1821) were taken from clippings in “Public Criticism &c. &c. upon the Performances of Charles Mathews, Comedian, collected since his death by Anne Mathews” (1837), an unpublished scrapbook in the Harvard Theatre Collection, vol. 2, pp. 82, 163.
11 Mr Mathews at Home! in his Youthful Days (etc.) (Holborn: M. Metford, n.d.)Google Scholar and Memoirs of the Youthful Days of Mr. Mathews, the Celebrated Comedian (etc.) (London: J. Limbird, n.d.)Google Scholar.
12 Mathews and Yates at Home. Mr. Mathews' New Lecture on Peculiarities and Manners, entitled, Spring Meeting (etc.) (London: J. Duncombe, n.d.)Google Scholar. This was the first of two of the later “At Homes” in which Mathews, needing a respite from carrying the responsibility for the entire evening, shared the bill with Edmund Yates, who performed his own one-person entertainments as part of the evening's program.
13 Mathews was never troubled by interpolating songs if they suited his talents, even in the performance of regular drama. An undated playbill in the Harvard Theatre Collection for a production at St. Mary's Hall, Coventry, of Holcroft's Road to Ruin, in which Mathews played Goldfinch, clearly indicates that he interpolated into it comic songs both from the “At Homes” and from Pocock's Hit or Miss, in which he had made an earlier success at the Lyceum.
