Bute Collection

Name

Bute Collection

Description

The nucleus of this collection of early English plays was formed by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762), aristocrat, letter writer and poet, who is best known for her travels to the Ottoman Empire, accompanying her husband, Edward Wortley Montagu, ambassador at Constantinople (Istanbul). The collection was built up by her son-in-law, the third Earl of Bute (1713-1792), and added to substantially by her grandson, the first Marquess of Bute (1744-1814), who most notably acquired the Shakespeare quartos. It contains 1,266 English plays and includes 17 16th-century editions, 530 17th-century and 650 18th-century editions. The earliest work is John Lyly's 'Sapho and Phao' (1584). There are 39 Shakespeare quartos, 16 printed before the first folio in 1623, including first editions of 'The Second Part of Henrie the Fourth' (1600), 'The Merchant of Venice' (1600), and 'Troilus and Cressida' (1609) and many examples of 17th- and 18th-century adaptations of Shakespeare's works. The other Elizabethan, Jacobean and Caroline dramatists are mostly well represented, notably Lyly, Chapman, Middleton, Dekker (including a perfect copy of 'The Converted Curtezan' of 1604), John Ford, Massinger, Shirley, Webster, etc. Among Restoration and 18th-century dramatists Dryden is pre-eminent with 30 plays, and there are first editions of Congreve, Vanbrugh, Farquhar, Addison, Steele and Sheridan. These leading figures in the English drama are complemented by the works of a host of minor playwrights of the 18th and the 19th century. The collection also includes a number of prompt books, mainly of the 19th century, from the Theatre Royal, Haymarket.

Organisation

The books have been catalogued individually and have the shelfmark 'Bute.'.

Acquisition

The collection was bought by the Library, with financial assistance from the Friends of the National Libraries, from Major Michael Crichton-Stuart, a descendant of the third Marquess of Bute, in 1956.

References

The Shakespeare quartos are recorded (as Crichton Stuart copies) in 'A Census of Shakespeare's Plays in Quarto, 1594-1709', HC Bartlett and AW Pollard, New Haven, 1939.

'The Bute Collection of English Plays', MP Linton, Times Literary Supplement, 21 December 1956, p. 772.

'The Bute Collection of English Plays', MP Linton, Friends of the National Libraries Annual Report 1956-57, pp. 8-10.

'The Bute Collection of English Plays', MP Linton, Stechert-Hafner Book News, April 1958, 89-91.

'Prompt-books in the Bute Collection of English Plays', MP Linton, Theatre Notebook, 11 (October 1956), 20-23.

'National Library of Scotland and Edinburgh University Library Copies of Plays in Greg's Bibliography of the English Printed Drama', MP Linton, Studies in Bibliography, 15 (1962), 91-104.

Online resources

Shakespeare quartos in the Bute Collection

Shelfmark

Bute.

Subjects

English plays

Shakespeare, William

Theatre