In order to share our research with a broader audience, we are working on a digital database of early American comedies – a category that includes (non-comedic) dramatic dialogues, closet drama, as well as fully-fledged stage plays that were actually produced. The aim of his database is not to make accessible facsimile or typewritten versions of these texts (we point out availability, though), but rather to provide additional information on the plays’ overall content, their perspectives on gender, their authors, and their publication and production histories and contexts.
As an interpretative database, this collection attempts to link a (still-growing) number of relatively unknown or neglected plays with larger scholarly debates in Early American Studies, and in literary and cultural studies more generally. By offering these entry points for further study, we hope to stimulate more lively scholarship on late-18th and early-19th century American plays and the playwrights of the time.
Anon. (The Battle of Brooklyn)
Anon. (The Downfall of Justice)
Anon. (The Gubernatocial Collection)
Carr, Mary (later Carr Clarke)
Leacock, John (pen name Dick Rifle)
Pogson, Sarah (also Sarah Pogson Smith)
Gender and Comedy in the Age of the American Revolution 