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Determining the Date of Robert Hunter's Androboros

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2014

Peter A. Davis
Peter A. Davis
Affiliation:
University of Oregon
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Extract

The year 1714 has long been acknowledged as the publication date of America's earliest extant play, Androboros, a short and bawdy political farce by Col. Robert Hunter, governor of the New York colony from 1710 to 1719. Some scholars even go so far as to cite August 1, 1714 as the exact date, and not without good reason. The title page of the only known copy, now in the Huntington Library, clearly states: “Printed at Monoropolis since 1st August, 1714.” Such evidence would appear to be conclusive were it not for two references within the playscript itself that prove Androboros was written and printed no earlier than 1715.

Type
Notes and Documents
Information
Theatre Survey , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , May 1984 , pp. 95 - 97
Copyright
Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1984

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References

NOTES

1 Of the handful of articles published on the play, all cite 1714 as the publication date. See Ford, Paul Leicester, “The Beginnings of American Dramatic Literature,” New England Magazine, 9 (1894), 673–87Google Scholar; Coad, Oral Sumner, “America's First Play,” Nation, 17 August 1918, 182–3Google Scholar; Leder, Lawrence H., “Robert Hunter's Androboros” Bulletin of the New York Public Library, 68 (March 1964), 152–90Google Scholar; McNamara, Brooks, “Robert Hunter and Androboros” Southern Speech Journal, 30 (Winter 1964), 106–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a more thorough study, see Davis, Peter A., “The Writing of Androboros: An Historical Study and Annotation of America's Earliest Extant Play,” Diss. University of Southern California 1980.Google Scholar

2 [Robert Hunter], Androboros, A B[i]ographical Farce In Three Acts, Viz. The Senate, the Consistory, and The Apotheosis, Printed at Monoropolis since 1st August, 1714 [New York City]: [William Bradford], [c. 1715], [i]. I am grateful to the Huntington Library in San Marino, California for allowing me access to the only extant copy of the play. All subsequent references to the play are based on this copy.’ For a biographical summary on Hunter, see “Hunter, Robert,” DNB, 28 (1891), 299–300.

3 For a biographical summary on Vesey, see “Vesey, William,” DAB, 10 (1934), 259.

4 Dix, Morgan, ed., A History of the Parish of Trinity Church in the City of New York, (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1898), I, 189.Google Scholar

5 While it is true that the use of the church calendar was largely abandoned during the eighteenth century, it was still in use throughout the first several decades in both church and government documents. This hold-over from the old style calendar is seen in the numerous personal letters and official records of that era, which use a split year for dates between January and Easter. Eventually, of course, the church year was dropped, but in 1715 it was obviously still in use and the Bishop of London employed it in all his correspondences, ignoring the secular year altogether. See O'Callaghan, E. B., ed., Documents Relative to the State of New York (Albany: Weed, Parsons and Company, 1856), V.Google Scholar

6 Whitehead, William, ed., Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New Jersey (Newark: Daily Advertiser Printing House, 1882), V, 216.Google Scholar

7 Ibid., 203–6.

8 For a more detailed discussion on the validity of the title page date, see Davis, 74–6.

9 In a letter from April of 1715, Hunter states that “I am perfectly easy in my mind (which was lately much otherwise).” By all indications, Hunter had quieted his various opponents. See letters from Hunter in O'Callaghan, V, 400, 401, and 473, which discuss his improving condition during the spring of 1715.