This electronic edition of Mary Robinson’s Nobody (Drury Lane, 1794) is the first to present a widely available and searchable transcript of the play along with a comprehensive introduction, extensive notes by the editor, and contexts of the drama. The open-access format and the accompanying contextual materials make this edition ideal for teaching and research.
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This electronic edition of Mary Robinson’s Nobody (Drury Lane, 1794) is the first to present a widely available and searchable transcript of the play along with a comprehensive introduction, extensive notes by the editor, and contexts of the drama. The open-access format and the accompanying contextual materials make this edition ideal for teaching and research.
Excerpt:
Mary Robinson (1757?-1800), née Darby, achieved great celebrity during her lifetime as an actress, courtesan, fashion icon, and prolific author of poetry, essays, novels, and plays. Over the past twenty years, her life and work have received fresh attention from scholars and biographers who have become fascinated, as her contemporaries once were, with her dazzling personality, social prowess, thespian skill, and literary artistry.
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Transcription of the only known, surviving manuscript of Nobody (LA 1046).
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Unfortunately for Robinson, the show did not go well, and the newspaper reviews, while not bad, were less than enthusiastic.
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When, in 1797, Lady Buckinghamshire’s Faro bank was reportedly stolen and her own footmen divulged her illegal gambling activities, the authorities intervened, and Lady Buckinghamshire and her fellow players were fined. Though Kenyon did not preside over the Buckinghamshire prosecution, the incident prompted a barrage of visual satire, which included images by James Gillray and Isaac Cruikshank.
The Link between Fashion and Gambling from Mary Robinson’s Modern Manners, a Poem. In Two Cantos (1793) and "The Gamester" (1800)
Mary RobinsonExcerpt:
Excerpts from Mary Robinson's Manners, A Poem. In Two Cantos (1793) and "The Gamester" (1800).
Mary Robinson’s Views on Gambling from "Present State of the Manners, Society, &c. &c. of the Metropolis of England" (1800)
Mary RobinsonExcerpt:
Excerpt from Mary Robinson's “Present State of the Manners, Society, &c. &c. of the Metropolis of England” (1800).
Account of the Controversy Surrounding the Production and Staging of Nobody from the Memoirs of the Late Mrs. Robinson (1801)
Mary RobinsonExcerpt:
Excerpt from Memoirs of the Late Mrs. Robinson, Written by Herself with Some Posthumous Pieces (1801).
James Boaden’s Assessment of Dorothy Jordan’s Performance as Nelly Primrose in Nobody (1831)
James BoadenExcerpt:
Excerpt from James Boaden's The Life of Mrs. Jordan (1831).
About
Originally Published Date: 1794
Nobody: A Comedy in Two Acts (1794) © 2013 by Mary Robinson, Terry F. Robinson, and Romantic Circles is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0