These are for the first
time made available in authoritative form to the student of the American
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.
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