BRITISH THEATRICAL GALLERY, A Collection of whole length portraits, with biographical notices…

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE. 4to, pp. [74]; with 20 handcoloured engraved plates by R. Cooper; bound in nineteenth century dark blue morocco, spine ruled and lettered in gilt, boards ruled in gilt, light rubbing to joints; with the later armorial bookplate of Newton Hall, Cambridge, on the front pastedown; a very desirable copy.


A highly desirable and sumptuously produced work, with hand coloured portraits of the leading actors and actresses of the day, after paintings by Harlow, Sharp, Clint, De Wilde, Waldeck, and others.

Actors include Sarah Siddons as Lady Macbeth, Edmund Kean as Richard III, ballerinas Mlle. Lisa Noblet and Mlle. Felicite Hullin, ballet dancer Etienne Le Blond, opera singer Giuseppe de Begnis, Samuel Simmonds as Baron Munchausen, Henry Gattie and Mme. Maria Theresa Bland in the farce Monsieur Tonson, Sarah Booth, Frances Copeland, Charles Young, etc. Each portrait is accompanied by a short biographical notice, apart from Mrs. Siddons, which runs to 19 pages - as to be expected for the best-known tragedienne of the eighteenth century, and most famous actress of her age.

Daniel Terry (1780-1829) was an actor and friend of Sir Walter Scott, many of whose novels he adapted for the stage. In 1825, together with Yates, he bought the Adelphi Theatre, but this partnership only lasted for two seasons. After leaving the Adelphi he temporarily retired to the continent, and then re-engaged at Drury Lane and played Polonius and Simpson. Finding himself unable to act, and his memory gone, he gave up his engagement. On 12th June 1829 he was struck with paralysis, and died during the month.

The work had a difficult gestation. It was issued in parts and was first advertised as early as November 1821 and was to be issued in parts each containing five plates and letterpress priced at 18 shillings each or as in this copy at £1 4s coloured. It was however not until March that the first part actually appeared with the second part in June, the third part appeared in 1823 and the last part eventually arrived in January 1824. Clearly the work took too long to issue and subscriptions may have fallen behind and it was never properly completed. The unsold parts were then bound together, as in our copy, with a printed title page added to round off the work.

Sets were clearly bound up at a later date with Abbey's copy stating 1825 as its publication date, our copy is instead dated 1822 when the first part was published, here both plates and text watermarked of 1817, indicating an early issue.

Abbey, Life, 418 (1825 edition); Arnott & Robinson, English Theatrical Literature 1559-1900, 2228; OCLC records one copy in the UK, at the NLS and three in North America, at Yale, Harvard and the Frick.