[Rarebooks] fa: OXBERRY -THE ACTOR'S BUDGET 1820 - Monologues, Tales, Anecdotes, Comic Songs &c.

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, October 4. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/nayte6m

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain

William Oxberry, ed.: The Actor's Budget; Consisting of Monologues, Prologues, Epilogues, and Tales, Serious and Comic: Together with a rare and genuine collection of Theatrical Anecdotes and Comic Songs. By W. Oxberry, of the Theatre Royal Drury-lane. London: W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 1820. Untrimmed in original publisher's boards; 8vo (19.75 cm); [4], iv, [4], 346, [2] pp.; with the half-title and terminal leaf of publisher's adverts.

A lively grab-bag of theatrical odds-and-ends compiled by the industrious actor, playwright, theatre manager, innkeeper, essayist, editor, printer and publisher William Oxberry (1784-1824). Includes songs and poems (by M. G. Lewis and others), biographies and anecdotes of the great and the long-forgotten (Moliere, Garrick, Mr. Twiss, etc.), Shakespearean anachronisms ("Cassius speaks of… the clock striking three..," etc.), the Diary of an unemployed Actor, tall tales and bad jokes, etc., etc. In short, everything the gregarious thespian might need to entertain and/or bore the pants off a captive audience.

Original binding rubbed and worn at the edges, spine label darkened, cracking to the hinges and spine but the boards and binding are holding; untrimmed page edges a little darkened and dust-soiled, otherwise the contents are quite clean, bright and fresh. Nineteenth-century owner's signatures to the front paste-down and the top margin of the first page of the text.