The plays included in this series have very largely been selected because of their distinct American flavour. The majority of the dramas deal directly with American subjects. But it seemed unwise and unrepresentative to frame one's policy of selection too rigidly on that score. Had such a method been adhered to, many of the plays written for Edwin Forrest would have to be omitted from consideration. It would have been difficult, because of this stricture, to include representative examples of dramas by the Philadelphia and Knickerbocker schools of playwrights. Robert T. Conrad's "Jack Cade," John Howard Payne's "Brutus," George Henry Boker's "Francesca da Rimini," and Nathaniel P. Willis's "Tortesa, the Usurer," would thus have been ruled from the collection. Nevertheless are they representative plays by American dramatists. Another departure from the American atmosphere is in the case of Steele Mackaye; here in preference to "Hazel Kirke," I have selected "Paul Kauvar," farthest away from American life, inasmuch as it deals with Nihilism, but written at a time when there was a Nihilistic fever in New York City.
No editor, attempting such a comprehensive collection as this, can be entirely successful in including everything which will enrich his original plan. There are always limitations placed upon him by the owners of copyrights, and by gaps in the development, due to loss of manuscripts. It was naturally my desire to have all the distinctive American playwrights represented in the present collection. Therefore, in justice, the omissions have to be indicated here, because they leave gaps in a development which it would have been well to offer unbroken and complete.
When the collection was first conceived, there was every indication that permission would be granted me to reproduce at least one of the Robert Montgomery Bird manuscripts, now owned by the University of Pennsylvania. Naturally, a collection of representative plays should include either Bird's "The Gladiator," or one of his other more or less oratorical and poetical pieces, written under the inspiration of Edwin Forrest. The intention to include John Augustus Stone's "Metamora" brought to light, after correspondence with the Forrest Home in Philadelphia, that either the manuscript of that play has irrevocably been destroyed, or else has been preserved so carefully that no one remotely connected with the actor Forrest has thus far been able to locate it. Only a few well remembered speeches and isolated scenes are seemingly left of a play which increased so largely the fame of Mr. Forrest.
In the selection of types my attention naturally became centered on the characters of Colonel Mulberry Sellars, and Judge Bardwell Slote, the former in a dramatization of "The Gilded Age," by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, and the latter, in a play by Benjamin E. Woolf, called "The Mighty Dollar." Extended investigation revealed the fact that, even if the plays are not lost, they are still unlocated, by the literary executors of Mark Twain on the one hand, and by the family of Mr. Woolf on the other. It is well to mention these instances, because, until the recent interest in the origins of American drama, manifest on all sides, there has been a danger that many most valuable manuscript plays would be lost to the student forever.
At a revival of individual scenes from distinctive American Plays, given in New York, on January 22, 1917, considerable difficulty was experienced before the stock-company manuscript of Frank E. Murdoch's "Davy Crockett" was procured. This play, old-fashioned in its general development, is none the less representative of old-time melodramatic situation and romantic manipulation, and there is every reason to believe that, with the tremendous changes in theatrical taste, unless this play is published in available printed form, it will be lost to the student of ten years from now. The play would have been included in the present edition if space had allowed.
When I came to a consideration of the modern section, there were many omissions which had to be made, due very largely to the fact that authors and owners of copyright were loath to forego their rights. A collection of this kind should undoubtedly have the name of James A. Herne represented in its contents, inasmuch as none of Mr. Herne's plays have heretofore been published, and two of his most distinctive dramas in original manuscript, "Margaret Fleming" and "Griffith Davenport," have been totally destroyed by fire. But representatives of Mr. Herne's family have declined, at the present time, to allow his plays to be published. This is to be regretted, inasmuch as nearly all of the most prominent American playwrights are represented, either in the publication of isolated plays or in definitive editions. I should have liked to end this collection with the inclusion of Mr. Eugene Walter's "The Easiest Way;" at the present time, that play, which was once issued in an edition privately printed, is to be found in the Drama League Series of plays.
From the standpoint of non-copyright material, two interesting conditions have been revealed through investigation. The first published play, in America, was "Androboros," by Governor Robert Hunter, written in collaboration with Chief Justice Lewis Morris.[1] Only one copy of that play is in existence, owned by Mr. H. E. Huntington, of New York, having formerly been a valued possession in the library of the Duke of Devonshire; and having descended from the private ownership of David Garrick and John Kemble, the English actors. Naturally, the private collector is loath, in view of the rarity of his edition, to allow it, at present, to be reprinted.
[1] The title-page of "Androboros" reads: "Androboros"/ A/Bographical [Sic.] Farce/In Three Acts, Viz./The Senate,/The Consistory,/and/The Apotheosis./ By Governour Hunter./Printed at Moropolis since 1st August, 1714. [Taken from Huntington Copy. Moropolis means Fool's Town.]
Some scholars, however, point to "Les Muses de la Nouvelle-France," printed in Paris in 1609, where the third piece is "Le Théâtre de Neptune en la Nouvelle-France." According to Marc Lescarbot, this was "représentée sur les flots du Port-Royal le quatorzième de Novembre, mille six cens six, au retour de Sieur de Poutrincourt du pais des Armouchiquois." This may be regarded as example of the first play written and acted on North American soil, it, however, being in French, and not given within what is now the United States, but rather at Port Royal, in Acadia. (See two interesting letters, 1o W. J. Neidig, Nation, 88:86, January 28, 1909; 2o Philip Alexander Bruce, Nation, 88:136, February 11, 1909.)
It was my further desire, as an example of college playwriting, to include the text of Barnabas Bidwell's "The Mercenary Match," written at Yale, and played by the students of Yale.[2] Only one copy of that play is, thus far, known to be in existence, owned by Mr. Evert Jansen Wendell, and its inclusion in the present collection is debarred for the same reason.