Author Description

This revised edition discusses all the dramatic genres of the 18th-century English theater from pantomime to opera, and vividly portrays its chief protagonists in an entertaining prose style, liberally peppered with anecdotes. In addition to covering in detail the classics of the century--such as Gay's The Beggar's Opera--Fiske provides a wealth of illustrative musical examples, appendices of surviving music, and short biographies of the main performers.