theatre. The Editor has tried consistently to adhere to his original
basis of selection: to offer only those texts not generally in
circulation and not used elsewhere in other anthologies. Exactions of
copyright have sometimes compelled him to depart from this rule. He has
been somewhat embarrassed, editorially, by the ungenerous haste with
which a few others have followed closely in his path, even to the point
of reproducing plays which were known to be scheduled for this
collection. For that reason there have been omitted Mr. William
Gillette's "Secret Service," available to readers in so many forms, and
Mr. Percy Mackaye's "The Scarecrow." No anthology of the present
historical scope, however, can disregard George Henry Boker's "Francesca
da Rimini" or Bronson Howard's "Shenandoah." In the instance of Mr.
Langdon Mitchell's "The New York Idea," it is possible to supersede all
previous issues of this refreshing comedy by offering a text which, as
to stage directions, has been completely revised by the author. Mr.
Mitchell wishes to have this regarded as the correct version, and has
himself prepared the "copy" of same. Because of the easy accessibility
of Dion Boucicault's "The Octoroon; or, Life in Louisiana," it was
thought best to omit this Irish-American playwright, whose jovial
prolixity enriched the American stage of the '60's and '70's. His
"London Assurance" is included in the present Editor's collection of
"Representative British Dramas: Victorian and Modern."

Of more historical significance than Joseph Jefferson's final version of
"Rip Van Winkle," are the two texts upon which Boucicault and Jefferson
based their play. It has been possible to offer the reader a comparative
arrangement of the John Kerr and Charles Burke dramatizations.

In the choice of Steele Mackaye's "Paul Kauvar; or, Anarchy" a period is
illustrated which might be described as transitional. Executors of the