First published in 2003. Wildly popular in their own day, Victorian burlesques are now little read, scarcely studied, and never performed. Giving long overdue e

The Victorian classical burlesque was a popular theatrical genre of the mid-19th century. It parodied ancient tragedies with music, melodrama, pastiche, mercile

Burlesque has been a powerful and enduring weapon in the critique of 'legitimate' Shakespearean culture by a seemingly 'illegitimate' popular culture. This was