An assortment of separate editions of Macbeth with extracts from other publications, mostly relating to specific productions of the play.
Simon Forman (1552–1611), ‘astrologer and quack-doctor’ (DNB), ‘astrologer and medical practitioner’ (ODNB), decided, in his late fifties, to start writing down remarks about plays that he had seen from which useful lessons might be learned. He made himself a notebook (seven folded sheets of paper – or six with a seventh tucked into the middle later) and gave it the title ‘The Bocke of Plaies and Notes therof’; but he died before he had made much progress with it. Only four plays were described, a page or two for each. Three of those four were by Shakespeare; one of those three was Macbeth.
Despite being mostly blank, the notebook survived. With many other loose papers of Forman’s, it eventually passed into the possession of Elias Ashmole; by the 1690s, when Edward Lhwyd drew up a summary catalogue of the manuscripts in the Ashmolean Museum, this item – ‘Of Places [sic] and Notes thereof, &c.’ – was part of a bound volume numbered 208 (Bernard 1697 1 (1) 352). (The Ashmolean manuscripts were transferred to the Bodleian Library in 1860, and that is where Forman’s notes are now to be found (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashmole 208, fos 200–13).)
In 1832, while he was compiling a catalogue of the Ashmolean manuscripts, the archivist W. H. Black came across these notes. Recognizing their curiosity value, he made a copy and sent it to J. Payne Collier – who had previously heard of the existence of some such notes but had failed to track them down. It was Collier, four years later, who put Forman’s notes into print for the first time (Collier 1836:6–26). Though Black was not mentioned there by name, it was never a secret that he was working on this catalogue; and Halliwell, in speaking of the ‘Book of Plays’, says plainly that it ‘was discovered by Mr. W. H. Black, and printed by Mr. Collier’ (Halliwell 1841:37n).
Yet to say that Forman’s notes were ‘discovered’ by Black is to overstate the case. Joseph Hunter, writing in 1845, was emphatic that he had known about them several years before they were put into print. ‘My attention was first drawn to these notes of Forman by my friend Dr. Bliss (to whom every thing of this kind at Oxford is perfectly familiar), at the meeting of the British Association at Oxford in the summer of 1832’ (Hunter 1845 1:413). And Bliss had looked through Forman’s papers in the Ashmolean Museum – ‘most of which are of no value’ (Bliss 1813–20 2:104) – long before that, while he was working on his revised edition of Wood’s Athenae Oxonienses. Between the lines, Hunter is saying that if Collier had had the sense to ask for Bliss’s help, he would not have needed to make a mystery of it.
This is a tighter transcription of Forman’s notes made by E. K. Chambers (1930). It was his suggestion that the innermost sheet (fos. 206–7) is folded the wrong way round, and that the notes about Cymbeline (fo. 206r) ought to come after the notes about Macbeth (fo. 207r–v); I go along with that.
It is faintly possible, I think, that the contents of this innermost sheet might be spurious. If someone can tell me that there is nothing suspicious about the stitching, paper, ink or handwriting, I will breathe a small sigh of relief. But no one has told me that yet.
In the end, even if it is perfectly genuine, I do not see that this evidence counts for much. In matters of detail, Forman is not at all reliable. He cannot even be trusted to get the dates right. An astrologer, one might think, would be sure to check the calendar. But Forman says that he saw Macbeth ‘1610, the 20th of April, Saturday’ (using the symbol ♄ for Saturn to denote the day); and 20 April 1610 was a Friday, not a Saturday. The discrepancy was, I think, first noticed by Halliwell-Phillipps (1881:172, 1882:290).*
* There are four elements in the date, at least one of which must be wrong. It has come to be generally supposed that ‘20’, ‘April’ and ♄ are right, and that ‘1610’ ought to be ‘1611’. But there are other possibilities – one being that ‘1610’, ‘20’ and ‘April’ are right, and that ♄ ought to be ♀. Happily, as long as it is not supposed that the play was a new one when Forman saw it performed, it is not going to make much difference when exactly that was.
Bernard 1697 Edward Bernard (comp.), Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae, 2 vols.\ (Oxford, 1697).
Chambers 1930 E. K. Chambers, William Shakespeare – a study of facts and problems, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1930).
Collier 1836 J. Payne Collier, New particulars regarding the works of Shakespeare (London, 1836).
Halliwell 1841 J. O. Halliwell (ed.), ‘Dr. Simon Forman’s diary’, Archaeologist, 1 (1841–2), 34–7 (Sep. 1841).
Halliwell-Phillipps 1881 J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps, Outlines of the life of Shakespeare (privately printed, 1881).
Halliwell-Phillipps 1882 J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps, Outlines of the life of Shakespeare, 2nd ed. (London, 1882).
Hunter 1845 Joseph Hunter, New illustrations of the life, studies, and writings of Shakespeare, 2 vols. (London, 1845).
Wood ed. Bliss 1813–20 Anthony Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, ed. Philip Bliss, 4 vols. (Oxford, 1813–20).
This file is a rough sketch intended to show what an edition of Davenant’s play might look like. As any edition would have to be, it is based on the quarto printed for Philip Chetwin in 1674 (see below). I have made a few large changes and many small ones. As for the former: I have omitted the musical extravaganza which got itself wedged awkwardly into the last scene of Act II, and also two whole scenes (conversations between Macduff and his wife) which consist of rhymed couplets throughout and (to my ear) do not sound like Davenant’s work. As for the latter: I have modernized the spelling, made free with the punctuation, and removed some inconsistencies (different spellings of Malcolm, for example). For the rest, I have largely left things as they are. The only emendations that I have made are those that I thought it would be silly not to make. Some faults remain, however, which cannot be put right. And so, for what it is worth, here is my idea of an approximation to the play as Davenant wrote it in 1663 – and as Samuel Pepys saw it performed several times at the theatre in Lincoln’s Inn Fields between 1664 and 1669.
The music which accompanied this play was part of the attraction, but there is almost no contemporary record of it – just a single part of a single dance tune, ‘A Jig called Macbeth’. The piece was first published anonymously in 1666; in 1669 it was credited to ‘M.L.’. Slight though it is, this evidence does narrowly suffice to prove that Matthew Locke wrote the music for the original version of Davenant’s play, as well as for the subsequent revival at Dorset Garden. Locke’s jig is one of the MIDI files listed here: Songs and dances.
The lyrics for ‘Let’s have a dance upon the heath’, one of the songs in Davenant’s version of Macbeth, included in a collection of popular songs printed for Samuel Speed in 1669 (Wing N529).
There are two later editions of this book, published in 1671 and 1681 (Wing N530–1), and the lyrics can be found there too, with just slight variations.
A quarto edition printed for William Cademan in 1673 (Wing S2929). The title-page is disingenuous: this is not the play that was being performed at the Duke’s Theatre. The text was copied from the ‘First Folio’ edition of Shakespeare’s play; the only novel elements are a partial list of the cast and lyrics for some of the songs. (I do not know whether the bookseller William Cademan was related to the actor Philip Cademan (who played Donalbain in this production).)
A quarto edition printed for Philip Chetwin in 1674 (Wing S2930). This is the first edition of Sir William Davenant’s adaptation of Macbeth. It seems to have been produced in a hurry (the work was distributed among three compositors), and numerous mistakes – some silly, some obvious, some both – were allowed to go uncorrected. Subsequent editions are all derived from this one, and most of its errors persist. (This is the quarto used by Furness (1873).) Some copies have a different title-page (Wing S2930A).
(The incongruous ‘Argument’, which tells a very different version of the story from the one told by Davenant’s play, was copied word for word from one of the various editions of Heylin’s Cosmography. That book was first published in 1652 (Wing H1689) and reprinted at intervals over the next thirty years. Philip Chetwin had acquired a share of the copyright by 1662. In the edition which he started having printed then (Wing H1691A) the Macbeth story occurs at p. 336.)
(The list of ‘The persons’ names’ is also incongruous, and was presumably copied from the Cademan quarto (see above). It is a list of the characters who appear in Shakespeare’s play – and several of those characters were absent from the play that was being presented at the Duke’s Theatre. (And Philip Cademan meanwhile had suffered such a serious injury that he was no longer capable of performing Donalbain, or any other part.))
I have marked three stretches of text (pp. 26–8, 32–4, 39–40, the last echoed by three lines on pp. 47–8) which I would regard as interpolations for which Sir William Davenant (who had died six years previously) ought not to be held accountable. I omit them from my sketch of an edition (see above). But I emphasize that this is just my opinion: there is nothing to distinguish these passages in the text as it is printed.
A farce staged by the His Majesty’s Servants, printed in 1674 (Wing D2446). The author’s name does not appear, but according to Langbaine (1691:530) the piece was ‘said to be writ by Thomas Duffet’, and no one has thought of doubting that, as far as I am aware. I reproduce only the so-called ‘Epilogue’, a crude spoof of the witch-scenes in Macbeth as they were now being performed by the rival company, at their splendid new theatre in Dorset Garden. The jokes have mostly lost their point, but some are still amusing. (‘By the itching of my bum’ has to be worth a smile.)
The copy which I have been using has had its first leaf removed. There ought to be an engraved frontispiece opposite the title-page – a half-length portrait of the empress, personated by a male actor in brownface. It has been reproduced occasionally – first of all, I think, by Montague Summers, The Restoration theatre (London, 1934), opp. p. 282, from a perfect copy of this quarto in the library of Worcester College, Oxford. (Summers, by the way, identified the actor correctly, without making any fuss about it.)
Chetwin’s quarto edition of Davenant’s Macbeth reprinted for Andrew Clark in 1674 (Wing S2931).
Clark’s quarto edition of Davenant’s Macbeth reprinted for Henry Herringman in 1687 (Wing S2932). I reproduce only the title-page. (This is the quarto used by Maidment and Logan (1874).) Some copies have different title-pages (Wing S2933–4).
Herringman’s quarto edition of Davenant’s Macbeth reprinted for him and Richard Bentley in 1695 (Wing S2935). I reproduce only the title-page.
Herringman and Bentley’s quarto edition of Davenant’s Macbeth reprinted for Jacob Tonson in 1710. This is the only edition which shows any sign of having been checked against a manuscript, presumably the prompt-book. (I have marked all the differences between this and the Chetwin quarto which might be thought significant: if the change was made in one of the intervening editions, I have given the date.) Nevertheless, numerous errors remain. (Macbeth is still ‘this Dire Friend of Scotland’ (page 44), just as he was in 1674.)
In this slightly revised form, Davenant’s Macbeth was reprinted more than once – most recently, it seems, in Edinburgh in 1731, ‘as it is now Acted at the New Theatre’. (‘Written by Mr. Shakespear, with Alterations by Mr. Tate.’ Is there any significance in that?) In London by this time, if one had gone into a bookshop and asked for a copy of Macbeth, one would probably have been offered a copy of Shakespeare’s play (see below). But it is said that Davenant’s Macbeth continued to be performed, at least until the 1760s.*
* ‘This Alteration is by no Means equal to the Original, yet on Account of the Music, which is entirely fine, being composed by Mr. Locke, it is still very frequently performed at our Theatres instead of the Original!’ (Baker 1764 sig. N2ra).
Apart from the quarto issued by Cademan under false colours in 1673 (see above), this is the first separate edition of Shakespeare’s Macbeth – the authentic play, not Davenant’s alteration. It was published at The Hague in 1711 by Thomas Johnson (d. 1735), an émigré Scot who was prospering in the book trade in the Netherlands.* A small octavo booklet of 84 pages, the edition could be bought by itself; but it was also intended as one component in a larger project, A collection of the best English plays (1710–12), which was planned to consist of 10 volumes, each volume comprising four plays. (According to this scheme, Macbeth was to be the second item in the first volume.) I reproduce only the title-page for volume 1 and the title-page and dramatis personae for Macbeth. That list is enough to prove that Johnson took his text from Rowe’s edition, published two years before.
* His early life is a blank. If he was correctly reported to be 58 years old when he died, he was born (somewhere) in 1676 or 1677; he was already a married man in 1704, when a child of his was baptized (as more children of his were later) in the English Church at The Hague (Kossmann 1935–7:206–7).** The earliest publications carrying his name date from 1705.
** E. F. Kossmann, De boekhandel te 's‑Gravenhage tot het eind van de 18de eeuw (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1935–7).
A 12mo edition of Shakespeare’s Macbeth published by Jacob Tonson (the younger) in 1729, reprinted from the 12mo reprint of Pope’s edition (1728). I reproduce only the title-page.
A 12mo edition of Shakespeare’s Macbeth published by Tonson in 1734. The text of the play is taken from Theobald’s edition (1733): that is not of any interest. At the back, however, there are four unnumbered pages giving the lyrics of the songs, ‘never printed in any of the former editions’, as they were being performed in Davenant’s Macbeth. I reproduce only the title-page and the songs.
Also in 1734, a 12mo edition of Shakespeare’s Macbeth (as edited by Pope) was printed by Robert Walker, in defiance of the monopoly claimed by Tonson and his associates. At the back, just as in Tonson’s edition, there are four unnumbered pages giving the lyrics of the songs. I assume that Walker stole them from Tonson, rather than vice versa, but I am not certain of that.
Further 12mo editions, substantially the same as the one printed for Tonson in 1734, were published in 1745, 1750, 1755, and at intervals after that. (To judge from the title and pagination, a 12mo edition printed for William Bowen in 1776 would seem to be the last in the series, but I have not seen it for myself.)
An acting edition of Macbeth, printed by William Cheyne in Edinburgh in 1753. Though his name does not appear, the actor John Lee, who was managing the Edinburgh theatre at the time (1752–6),* has always been given the credit (or the discredit) for this adaptation. But how original was it? I doubt whether this version of the play was vastly different from the one which was being performed contemporaneously in London. Before trying his luck in Scotland, Lee had been employed by Garrick at Drury Lane (1747–52), and it is known that he had appeared (as the Thane of Ross) in Garrick's production of Macbeth – with Garrick as Macbeth in March 1748 (Genest 1832 4:239), with Spranger Barry as Macbeth in the following October (4:260). This Edinburgh version is, very definitely, Shakespeare’s play (Shakespeare’s play as edited by Theobald, to be more precise). The text, however, has been roughly handled, and lines borrowed from Davenant’s Macbeth have been spliced in here and there, especially towards the end. The musical episodes from Davenant’s play are all included, with the lyrics in (mostly) the expanded form which I first find recorded in 1734 (see above). And the final scene incorporates the dying speech which Garrick wrote (or was assumed to have written) for himself – a speech which (as far as I know) is first attested here, and then not again till twenty years later, in Bell's acting edition (1773). In the end, no one is going to say anything very kind about this adaptation of Macbeth – but I do not understand why it is spoken of so contemptuously by Baker (1764 sig. N2ra). It could have been very much worse. (I have seen three copies of this booklet: only one of them has the ‘Errata’ at the end: for the rest they appear to be identical. Not that I think it matters – but there seems to be a change of compositor at page 49.)
* Lee had a chequered career. He died at Bath, ‘after a short but severe illness’, on 19 Feb. 1781 (Gentleman's Magazine, Feb. 1781, 95). A ‘strange man’ – this was how Charles Dibdin remembered him – ‘who would have been a good MANAGER but for his pride, and second to but very few as an ACTOR but for his particularity’ (Dibdin 1788:372).
The first edition of the music for Macbeth, published by John Johnston in 1770. (The date was determined by Moore (1961:27).) I reproduce the title-page and the dedication to Garrick; the music itself I have reproduced as a collection of MIDI files (plus a songsheet). Those files can be found here: Songs and dances.
An edition of the play as it was being performed at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane, with David Garrick as Macbeth and Ann Barry as Lady Macbeth.
John Bell was an ambitious young bookseller who, since 1769, had owned a shop in the Strand.* This booklet was one instalment – in fact the first instalment – in a much grander project, an edition of all of Shakespeare’s plays as they were currently being performed in the London theatres. The idea behind it was that the plays, by and large, were not presentable as they had been printed in the first folio – that the actors, by and large, had done a good job of cutting out the bits which were rude or silly or pointless – and that these acting versions were worth preserving in their own right. Not everyone agreed – but I do.
Though the impetus came from Bell, ‘Bell’s Edition’ was a collaborative effort. A bookseller in York, Christopher Etherington, had some share in the enterprise; the prompter at Drury Lane, William Hopkins, assisted with the text; and a modest amount of annotation was supplied (anonymously) by Francis Gentleman. Each booklet was embellished with a copperplate frontispiece, a drawing of some dramatic moment in the play. (The one for Macbeth shows Macbeth exclaiming ‘Had I three ears I’d hear thee!’ as the second apparition starts to speak.) In its completed form, the edition was published in eight volumes in 1774, dedicated to David Garrick.
* The biographical accounts which I have seen have nothing to say about Bell’s life prior to that. Since he is reported to have been ‘aged 86’ when he died in February 1831 (Gentleman’s Magazine, March 1831, 282), it is deduced that he was born in 1745 (or 1744). The rest is silence. In view of his business relationship with Etherington (for which there is further evidence elsewhere), I suspect that the John Bell who bought this shop in the Strand in 1769 may have been the same John Bell (son of Walter Bell of Penrith) who got apprenticed to a York printer in 1765 (BBTI). But I have no idea how a young man from York could have afforded to set himself up in business in London only four years later.
Despite being much too old for the part, Charles Macklin insisted on starring in his own production of Macbeth at Covent Garden in October 1773. The script, I assume, was much the same as that being used by Garrick at Drury Lane: where Macklin found scope for originality was in the staging of the play. Costumes, scenery, incidental music – all were designed to evoke a romantic idea of Scottishness. (‘The tragedy of Macbeth would have been still dressed in modern habits, if the good taste of Mr. Macklin had not introduced the old highland military habit’ (Davies 1784 3:82–3).) Even though there were only four performances of it (Genest 1832:414–15), this production exerted a powerful influence. Within thirty years, it had become the regular practice, ‘not only on the London boards, but in all the provincial and country Theatres’, for Macbeth to be made to look (and sound) distinctively Scottish.
This file is an account of Macklin’s production written long after the event by William Cooke. It appeared first, in April 1801, in one of a series of articles published in the European Magazine between November 1799 and March 1802; when those articles were turned into a book, this passage appeared there too (Cooke 1804:281–6). (A few small adjustments were made to the wording, but they are not of any significance. Like the articles, the book was published anonymously, but its authorship was never a mystery.) Cooke is one year wrong about the date, but in other respects, I take it, he is accurate enough.
Another printing of Bell’s edition, differing in many details from the first. As far as the text is concerned, there is only one large discrepancy: two lines omitted in 1773 have been reinstated here (‘know That it was he … so under fortune’).
This new edition is something of a a puzzle. As far as I can tell, it was only the first five volumes which needed to be reprinted. In volume 1 the paging is different: instead of starting again with a second page 1, Macbeth starts with page 59. In volumes 2–5 the title-pages for each play have the statement ‘The second edition’. Yet that is not the whole story. Individual booklets seem to have been reprinted from time to time; additional illustrations were made available for anyone willing to pay extra.
David Garrick died in January 1779. The bookseller Thomas Davies – a bookseller now, but formerly an actor – saw an opportunity to pay his respects and possibly make some money at the same time. Encouraged by Samuel Johnson, he wrote up an account of the great actor’s career; and that account, ‘interspersed with characters and anecdotes of [Garrick’s] theatrical contemporaries’, evolved into ‘a history of the stage, which includes a period of thirty-six years’. The book was published, in two volumes, in mid 1780, and was successful enough to be reprinted three times (1780, 1781, 1784). This file contains all the passages which make some significant mention of Macbeth, as they appeared in the fourth edition – the last edition which Davies had the chance to revise. (He died in May 1785.)
Having finished his book about Garrick, Davies revived a plan which he had first proposed before Garrick’s death – a book which would combine ‘critical observations’ on particular passages in some of Shakespeare’s plays with a selection from his fund of theatrical anecdotes. Given the title ‘Dramatic Miscellanies’ (misspelt ‘Micellanies’ on the title-pages, nowhere else), the book was published in three volumes in 1784. A new edition came out in May 1785, a few days before Davies’s death (Nichols 1812 6:434).
Reviewing the first edition of Davies's book, John Duncombe (for it was he) declared himself to be ‘abundantly more pleased with the anecdotes they contain, than with the criticism, however excellent’ (Gentleman’s Magazine, May 1784, 360). It would be hard to disagree. The comments are not uninteresting, but they are the sort of comments which could have been made by anyone – anyone, that is, who had some of the right background knowledge. The anecdotes, in contrast, are uniquely valuable, because they derive from Davies’s personal experience, on and off the stage, over a span of almost fifty years. At one extreme, he can recall conversing with an actor who had performed opposite Thomas Betterton; at the other, he can report what Charles Macklin has to say. And besides, if he had not put these stories on record, they would not have been recorded at all.
Davies’s account of Macbeth is in volume 2; it is divided arbitrarily into three chapters. I reproduce the whole of it here, as it appeared (only very slightly altered) in the second edition. I have tinted the anecdotes, because they are the interesting bits; for the same reason I list the file here, rather than in the commentary folder.
A 12mo edition published by a consortium of London booksellers in 1785. It gives the entire text (with the words of the songs wedged in at the proper places), using inverted commas to cancel the passages which are ‘omitted in the Representation at the Theatre’. (The only copy which I have seen lacks the last page and has some other blemishes; but these defects do not prevent it from being useful.)
Another 12mo edition published in 1785 – ‘Printed for the Proprietors, and sold by R(achael) Randall’ – seems to have been reprinted from this one: it omits the cancelled passages, but in every other respect is almost identical with it.
An edition of the play as it was performed at the opening of the new Theatre Royal in Drury Lane on 21 April 1794, with John Philip Kemble as Macbeth and Sarah Siddons as Lady Macbeth. Famously, this is the production in which Banquo’s Ghost became invisible to the audience (in the banquet scene, not in the cauldron scene). It is notable too that the lords bring their ladies to the banquet. All in all, Kemble’s adaptation is a very thoughtful piece of work: one can learn a lot about the play by asking why Kemble made the changes that he did.
A good-looking 6mo edition printed for the firm of Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme. One of a collection of matching booklets, 125 in all, published separately, but with the idea that they would eventually be bound up together to make a set of 25 volumes, under the overall title ‘The British theatre’. (When that happened, Macbeth became the third item in volume 4.) Like the other booklets, it has an engraved frontispiece (‘Painted by Cook. / Engrav’d by Raimbach. / Publish’d by Longman & Co. 1806’) and a short introduction by Elizabeth Inchbald. The script is basically the same as in Kemble’s edition, but there are numerous differences in detail. Banquo’s Ghost reappears in the banquet scene – just once, however, not twice.
A sumptuous production of Macbeth starring Edmund Kean and Sarah Bartley was premiered at Drury Lane on Saturday 5 Nov. 1814. I have not seen the souvenir edition cited by Jaggard (1911:384): Macbeth ... Revived at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, November, 1814, under the superintendence of S. J. Arnold (London, 1814). This file contains transcripts of (1) the original playbill; (2) a review in the Morning Chronicle; and (3) an extract from the memoirs of the musical director, Michael Kelly.
A 12mo edition printed by William Oxberry in 1821. Published separately, but also as part of a 20-volume collection called ‘The new English drama’. (Macbeth is the second item in volume 14.) As with Longman’s edition, there is an engraved frontispiece (‘Mr. Macready, as Macbeth. / Engraved by W. Coutts from an original painting by Clint. / Published 1821 …’) and a short introduction, supplied in this case by George Soane. There are numerous footnotes as well; but they are not of any usefulness that I can see, and I have omitted them all.
A 12mo edition printed by John Cumberland in 1827, the prefatory remarks contributed by George Daniel. There are so many errors and eccentric readings that I have thought it advisable to mark them (with red daggers).
The collection of plays called ‘Cumberland’s British Theatre’ began publication in 1826 and ran and ran and ran. (Many of the later volumes are undated. Of those which I have seen, vol. 20 has a title-page dated 1828 and vol. 36 has a frontispiece dated 1837.) The series was able to get off to a flying start because the first 84 plays (which make up the first twelve volumes) were cannibalized from an earlier collection of the same kind, ‘Dolby’s British Theatre’ (1823–5), which had come to a sudden end. (The publisher, Thomas Dolby, was made bankrupt in Nov. 1825 (Gazette, 19 Nov. 1825, 2134).) In both collections, Macbeth was the third item in the first volume, preceded only by Romeo and Juliet and She stoops to conquer. I have not seen Dolby’s Macbeth (1823). To get some sort of grip, I have compared Cumberland’s version of King John (1826) with Dolby’s version (1823), and it turns out that Cumberland reprinted the script page for page, almost indistinguishably. I suppose that he would have done the same for Macbeth. If that is right, parts of the present file will need to be cancelled once I can get hold of a copy of Dolby’s edition. Apart from the title-page, Cumberland may have added nothing more than the preface and the cast lists.
The comical frontispiece used for this edition – Macbeth and Banquo confronted by the witches, engraved by Henry White ‘from a Drawing taken in the Theatre’ by Robert Cruikshank – was, I think, originally made for Dolby.
I have not yet been able to get hold of the acting edition published by John Tallis & Co. in January 1851. This is the script of the play ‘as produced at the Theatres-Royal Covent Garden and Drury Lane, whilst under the management of W. C. Macready, Esq., and now universally adopted by the principal theatres in England, Ireland, Scotland, and America’; so Tallis’s advertisements say.
An edition of the play as it was staged by Charles Kean at the Princess’s Theatre in 1853. I have omitted all the annotation, with the exception of four footnotes which are in a category by themselves: they mark the places where Kean had fallen for some of the emendations invented by John Payne Collier.
An edition of the play published in New York in 1878, based on the prompt-book used by Edwin Booth. Some of the annotation was supplied by Booth himself, some by the editor, William Winter. (The format is abnormal: I have not tried to reproduce it, only to convey some idea of it.)
An edition of the play as it was staged by Henry Irving at the Lyceum Theatre in 1888, with music specially composed by Sir Arthur Sullivan.
There exists at least one other impression of this booklet, dated 1889. Much of it is identical; but some further cuts are made, and the pagination differs in places for that reason.
The ‘Henry Irving Shakespeare’ was published in eight volumes between 1888 and 1890. It was mainly edited by Francis Albert (‘Frank A.’) Marshall. Irving lent his name and moral support; his only editorial contribution was to look through the proofs and cancel the passages which he thought should be omitted in performance. Towards the end, Marshall’s health began to fail (in fact he died before the last volume was published), and other editors had to help out. Macbeth was dealt with by Arthur Symons. This is his edition, minus the introduction and annotation. The passages cancelled by Irving are roughly – only roughly – the same as those omitted from the script of his acting edition.
An edition of the play as it was staged by Johnston Forbes Robertson at the Lyceum Theatre in 1898. There are two versions of this booklet, with or without illustrations. The illustrated version has five photographic portraits: two of Forbes Robertson as Macbeth, two of Mrs Patrick Campbell as Lady Macbeth, one of Robert Taber as Macduff.
Script of an adaptation of Macbeth filmed in 1948, directed by Orson Welles, starring Orson Welles. Jeanette Nolan was Lady Macbeth. This is, emphatically, Welles’s Macbeth, not Shakespeare’s. He has put the Folio text through a shredder, rearranged the snippets that he wants to keep and thrown the rest away. The lines are mostly original, but they are not in the original order – not even nearly so. Roughly half of the play is discarded; several characters disappear – not just Hecate and the English doctor, but also Donalbain, the third murderer, the less important thanes. Conversely two roles are expanded. Lady Macduff appears in several scenes, not just the one where she and her children get murdered. The old man from scene 12 (‘Threescore and ten …’) evolves into a ‘Holy Father’ and shows his face (and his extraordinary hairstyle) repeatedly. (He is responsible for some religious mumblings which are the only significant element in the script not derived from Folio.) In the end, whatever may be thought of the mutilation inflicted on the play, it can hardly be denied that this film makes a powerful impression. (As for me, whenever I read Malcolm’s lines, I hear Roddy McDowall’s voice.)
The film was first shown at the Venice Film Festival on 3 September 1948. More than one version exists. This transcript – hugely indebted to one that I found online at a site called ‘Script-O-Rama’ – is from a ‘fully restored’ version released on DVD in 2000.
Script (with some defects) of a live performance of Macbeth televised from NBC’s colour studio in Brooklyn on Sunday 28 November 1954, as an episode in the ‘Hallmark Hall of Fame’. It was directed by George Schaefer; the leading roles were played by Maurice Evans and Judith Anderson (aged 53 and 57 respectively). No one is credited with the adaptation: I assume that Schaefer and the actors worked it out among themselves.* There is one very striking departure from the Folio text, in that the cauldron scene is reduced to a bare minimum. Instead of waiting to visit the witches in the morning, Macbeth has one more drink and passes out; the witches appear in his head; and when he comes round – ‘Where are they? Gone!’ – he finds himself in bed at home.
* While the actors were doing their thing, a small orchestra was playing the music written for this production. It is credited to Lehman Engel. (A harpist sings a song for Duncan in I.vii, but I cannot catch the words of it.)
At that time, the only practical method for preserving a live TV programme was by making a kinescope copy – that is, by rigging up a movie camera to capture the picture and sound from a TV screen as they were about to vanish into the ether. (That is more easily said than done.) The kinescope, once made, could be reproduced like any other film, as often as might be necessary. Happily a black-and-white kinescope was made of this performance of Macbeth,* and two copies of it (two that I know of) are available in digitized form. (1) A company called Video Dimensions produced a ‘restored version’ and released it on DVD in 2007. (2) An unrestored version was uploaded to YouTube in 2014. There is little good to say about them except that they exist. On top of the flaws which go with any live performance (slips of the tongue, errant microphones, background noises, and so on), the quality of the recording was far from adequate; and on top of that both copies have suffered some serious damage. Though mostly the DVD is in better shape, each copy supplies some of the deficiencies of the other.† This transcript of mine is composite, but the timings should be taken to refer to the DVD.
* I am guessing here, but – since the film runs for approximately 105 minutes, and since I understand that a standard reel of 16 mm film lasts for 11–12 minutes – I suppose that the end product should be visualized as a set of 9 or 10 reels, shot alternately through two cameras, to be shown (as usual) alternately through two projectors.
† In particular, the YouTube copy has a mangled version of a passage (II.ii.55–71) which is altogether missing from the DVD. By the way, it should be noted that the DVD and the corresponding entry in IMDb both include some names in the credits for this film which do not belong with it: they belong with the 1960 remake (see below). So I have thought it sensible to transcribe the original credits in full, from the YouTube copy.
Six years later, a second production of Macbeth was made for the ‘Hallmark Hall of Fame’. This was a much more ambitious undertaking, with a much more generous budget. It was filmed in the UK – partly on location in Scotland – with the intention that it would be shown in cinemas as well as on TV. The director was the same as before; the two stars were the same (but six years older); the supporting cast was a fine array of British actors. I suppose that the script remained more or less the same: at least it seems to be true that the same characters missing from the original production – Third Murderer, Hecate, English Doctor, Siward, Young Siward – were all missing from the movie too. Macduff’s wife and son appeared only briefly and were not allowed to speak.* Completed with efficiency and speed, the movie was premiered on NBC on 20 November 1960. I have not been able to get hold of a copy of it. (It was being shown at a cinema in London in May 1961 but I missed my chance to see it.)
* This passage from the shooting script was quoted in a publicity booklet at the time: ‘RAPE OF FIFE MONTAGE. Several scenes of political violence … possibly a meeting being broken up by soldiers; a thatched roof burning. Suddenly, in contrast to this horror, we discover Lady Macduff putting her three children to bed, all of them happy. Into this scene break a group of Macbeth’s henchmen, who murder the lot. Final scene of montage should be a long shot of what is presumably Macduff’s home with fire coming out of the windows, etc.’ (Hutton 1960:47).
Hutton 1960 Clayton Hutton, Macbeth – the making of the film (London, 1960).
Script of a widescreen film of Macbeth made for Playboy Productions, starring Jon Finch and Francesca Annis (aged 29 and 26 respectively). The film was directed by Roman Polanski, from a screenplay written by him and Kenneth Tynan. Mostly it follows the Folio text, omitting much while making only some small additions, all of a fairly innocuous kind. (Somebody thought that it would be a good idea for Fleance to sing a song while Duncan was having his supper. In the film the song is cut short after four lines: the full version, 21 lines long, is included on the soundtrack album, which came out in 1972.) A desire to shock produced some surprising results. Lady Macbeth’s bare buttocks do not upset me. Nor does the blood. But I draw the line at letting Malcolm and Donalbain impersonate the Third Apparition. That is just silly.
The film was first shown in New York on 1 December 1971, in London on 2 February 1972. This transcript comes from a DVD released in 2003.
Script of a movie directed by Philip Casson for Thames Television, with Ian McKellen as Macbeth and Judi Dench as his wife. This film was intended as a record of the production staged by Trevor Nunn at The Other Place in Stratford: it was ‘produced and conceived for television’ by him. The supporting cast was purposely kept small; several of the actors play more than one part. Hecate gets the chop; so do Siward and his son, and two supernumerary thanes; otherwise not much is cut. Unusually, the ‘king's evil’ episode is retained: we do not get to meet the English doctor, but some of his lines, altered slightly, are given to Malcolm instead. Macduff appears in the early scenes: whenever Duncan is seen, Macduff is seen too: he has nothing to say, but at least he does have a recognizable face (Bob Peck’s). Seyton is made to work hard. (I do not think it right for the doctor to be made to help with Macbeth’s armour: that job should be done by a servant trained how to do it. But every production is allowed a quirk or two.)
The film was made in 1978 and shown on ITV on Thursday 4 January 1979. This transcript comes from a DVD released in 2004.
Script of a production of Macbeth directed by Jack Gold for the BBC Television Shakespeare. Nicol Williamson played Macbeth; Jane Lapotaire played Lady Macbeth. These BBC productions prided themselves on their fidelity to the Folio text. But this Macbeth is not particularly faithful. The octosyllabic passages are dropped; the English doctor gets lost; and there are numerous smaller omissions – sometimes just a few words, sometimes one or more whole lines. The oddest change is that the whole of scene 19 is interpolated into scene 20, at a point near the end of it, so that the dialogue between Lennox and the other lord (‘My former speeches …’) can be followed by Macbeth’s dialogue with Lennox (‘Saw you the weird sisters?’). Gratuitously, scene 31 (‘This way, my lord, …’) is tacked on to the beginning of scene 33 (‘I wish the friends we miss …’). At the very end, Malcolm, in his moment of triumph, finds himself upstaged by Fleance – who, in this version, has reappeared and joined the rebel army. Since this was not what Shakespeare intended, Malcolm and Fleance can only stare at one another, neither having anything to say. That is awkward – but the change reflects a fairly general sense that there is something wrong with the ending of the play. (Orson Welles let First Witch have the last word. Polanski and Tynan let Donalbain return from Ireland, to be lured into meeting the witches. Casson just let everyone look glum.)
The film was made in 1982 and shown on BBC TV on Saturday 5 November 1983. This transcript comes from a DVD released in 2005.