Funding for an Open Access edition of A Player and a Gentleman: The Diary of Harry Watkins, Nineteenth - Century U.S. American Actor Written by Amy Hughes and Naomi Stubbs

FAIN: DR-279990-21

Regents of the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1382)
LeAnn Fields (Project Director: December 2020 to December 2022)

This project will publish the book A Player and a Gentleman: The Diary of Harry Watkins, Nineteenth-Century US American Actor edited by Amy E. Hughes and Naomi J. Stubbs an electronic open access format under a Creative Commons license, making it available for free download and distribution. This book offers selections from the diary of actor, playwright, and stage manager Harry Watkins (1825–94) providing a rare glimpse into American theater and society in the mid-nineteenth century. For fifteen years Watkins regularly recorded the plays he saw, the roles he performed, the books he read, and his impressions of current events. His travels included encounters with P. T. Barnum, Junius Brutus Booth, Edwin Forrest, Anna Cora Mowatt, and Lucy Stone, among other notable figures. His is the only known diary of substantial length and scope written by a U.S. actor before the Civil War—making Watkins, essentially, the antebellum equivalent of Samuel Pepys.

Associated Products

Single Publication (Open Access eBook or Collection)
Publication Type: Single Publication
Title: A Player and a Gentleman: The Diary of Harry Watkins, Nineteenth - Century U.S. American Actor
Year: 2021
ISBN: 9780472902613
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Author: Harry Watkins
Editor: Edited by Amy L. Hughes and Naomi J. Stubbs
Abstract: Hardworking actor, playwright, and stage manager Harry Watkins (1825–94) was also a prolific diarist. For fifteen years Watkins regularly recorded the plays he saw, the roles he performed, the books he read, and his impressions of current events. Performing across the U.S., Watkins collaborated with preeminent performers and producers, recording his successes and failures as well as his encounters with celebrities such as P. T. Barnum, Junius Brutus Booth, Edwin Forrest, Anna Cora Mowatt, and Lucy Stone. His is the only known diary of substantial length and scope written by a U.S. actor before the Civil War—making Watkins, essentially, the antebellum equivalent of Samuel Pepys. Theater historians Amy E. Hughes and Naomi J. Stubbs have selected, edited, and annotated excerpts from the diary in an edition that offers a vivid glimpse of how ordinary people like Watkins lived, loved, struggled, and triumphed during one of the most tumultuous periods in U.S. history.
Primary URL: https://worldcat.org/search?q=A+Player+and+a+Gentleman
Primary URL Description: Worldcat
Secondary URL: https://www.press.umich.edu/9290953/player_and_a_gentleman
Secondary URL Description: University of Michigan Press
URL 3: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/166/oa_monograph/book/60688
URL 3 Description: Project Muse
URL 4: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/48508
URL 4 Description: OAPEN
URL 5: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1kr4pds
URL 5 Description: JSTOR
Type: Single author monograph

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