This series collects the complete scripts of 100 selected, previously unpublished plays by 19th-Century American playwrights. Volume 1 features Dion Boucicault's work, with "Forbidden Fruit," "Louis XI," "Dot," "Flying Scud," "Mercy Dodd," and "Robert Emmet."

In this richly illustrated study of the relationship of art, drama, and fiction in the nineteenth century, Martin Meisel illuminates the collaboration between storytelling and picturemaking that informed narrative painting, pictorial dramaturgy, and serial illustrated fiction. Originally published in 1984. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Five plays by this virtuoso of the theatre have been gathered in one volume and given scholarly attention. Dion Boucicault, the most popular dramatist of the second half of the nineteenth century, was also one of the most prolific and representative. Irish in origin, he worked and wrote in England and America where for twenty years he led the touring circuit. His plays reflect the different theatrical traditions, Irish, English and American, in which he was a crucial figure. Two plays are published here for the first time this century, Used Up and Jessie Brown. The Shaughraun and The Octoroon are outstanding examples of melodrama; Old Heads and Young Hearts is one of the few notable nineteenth-century comedies. Peter Thomson's introduction assesses Boucicault's place in the nineteenth century in both England and America, and shows that his work cannot be ignored by any serious student of drama.