Books

The following items are currently available.

• Beauchamps, P.-F. Godart de, Recherches sur les théâtres de France, 3 tom. (Paris : Prault, 1735)
  A searchable version of the text in page image format. The first two volumes provide an account of the development of the French theatre with bibliographical references, Vol. I from 1161 to 1599 and Vol. II from 1601 to 1734, plus a list of 'Tragédies, Comédies et Opéra manuscrits' (Vol. II, pp. 540-544). The third volume contains 'Tournois, carousels, pas d'armes, comédies, mascarades, mommeries et ballets, 1548-1735' (pp. 1-202), 'Opéras 1671-1734' (pp. 203-247), 'Le Théâtre italien' (pp. 248-330), 'Opéra comique ou Théâtre de la foire' (pp. 331-339) and 'Particularités de la vie de quelques comédiens français' (pp. 340-379).Vol. III also includes the internal indexes to the work, authors chronologically (pp. 380-390), authors alphabetically (pp. 391-415) and plays alphabetically (pp. 416-521). The search-engine will find any name or title as well as cognate words included with the entry.

• Brunet, Ch., Table de Soleinne (New York : Burt Franklin, 1914)
  A digitised version of the Index to the 25,000+ titles listed in the Catalogue de Soleinne, one of the most important bibliographical resources for French theatre prior to the mid-19thC.
  The index to titles was published in 1914 following work by the bibliographer Charles BRUNET, and is sometimes absent from copies of the Soleinne Catalogue that one finds in libraries. Our digitised version allows you to search through the titles for any word. This natural, but extremely valuable aspect of digitisation overcomes some of the limitations of the usual alphabetical index.

• Campardon, E., Les Spectacles de la foire, 2 tom. (Paris, 1877)
  A hypertext presentation of this rich source of material on the fairground theatre from 1595 to 1791, particularly important because of the archival documentation provided by the author. You can start your search with any name or date and internal links enable you to navigate between the entries, as well as providing cross-referencing to the Parfaicts' Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire des spectacles de la foire (1743). The search-engine will find any word or string in the text.

• Laporte, J. de et S. R. N. Chamfort, Dictionnaire dramatique, 3 tom. (Paris : Lacombe, 1776)
  A fully hyperlinked edition of all the dramaturgical entries in the Dictionnaire Dramatique (Laporte and Chamfort, 1776), with articles on (for example) Allégorie, Catastrophe, Diction, Exposition, Horreur, Intrigue, Merveilleux, Parodie, Règles, Unité, Vraisemblance.
  Nathalie Rizzoni, of the CELLF 17e-18e (CNRS and Paris IV, Sorbonne) has kindly written a preface that helps us to situate the work and its authors.
  We have also added a KWIC (keywords-in-context) search that will provide lists of references to specific terms and authors, etc.

• Maupoint, Bibliothèque des théâtres (Paris : Prault, 1733)
  A searchable version of the text in page image format. The work is divided into the following sections: 'Catalogue alphabétique des pièces dramatiques, opéra, parodies et opéra comiques' (pp. 1-320) [liste], 'Additions et corrections' (pp. 321-329) [corrections], 'Liste des opéra suivant les années qu'ils ont été représentés' (pp. 330-332) [opéra], 'Liste chronologique des compositeurs de la musique des opéra et ballets' (p. 333) [compositeurs], 'Catalogue alphabétique des opéra comiques joués sur les théâtres des Foires de Saint Germain et de Saint Laurent' (pp. 334-342) [opcomiques], 'Chronologie des auteurs dramatiques depuis l'an 1450' (pp. 343-356) and 'Table alphabétique des noms des auteurs, musiciens et acteurs' (pp. 357-371) [auteurs].

• Parfaict, Cl. et Fr., Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire des spectacles de la foire, 2 tom. (Paris : Briasson, 1743)
  A hypertext reconstruction of this key work of the Frères Parfaict which presents the history of the theatre of the Foire de Saint Germain and the Foire de Saint Laurent from 1697 to 1742 on a year-by-year basis. The search facility allows you to find any name, title or word in the text.

• Parfaict, Cl. et Fr., Dictionnaire des theatres de Paris, 7 tom. (Paris : Rozet, 1767)
  Complete copy of the Parfaicts' Dictionnaire des theatres de Paris, in the 7-volume 1767 edition that includes addenda and corrections.
  In order to bring this to you quickly, we have looked for a balance between hypertext and digital page reproduction. The result is that the entire work is available in page image format, but, to make it easier to use, we have added a fully searchable hypertext index to the 5000+ entries. You may search this index for keywords from the titles of plays or from the names of authors, etc. Your search will generate a list of clickable links that will take you to the volume and page where the article begins, and a simple navigation procedure will allow you to read on.

• Léris, A. de, Dictionnaire portatif historique et littéraire des théâtres (Paris: Jombert, 1763)
  A hypertext version of this key compendium. The great value of Léris's work lies in the level of detail he provides, not only on the plays and operas performed before 1763 but on the authors, composers and actors who created them. The search-engine will find any word or string within the Pièces and Auteurs sections of the text; the Recherche avancée facility enables you to refine your search by combining keywords and specifying categories of articles.

• Clément, J.M.B. et J. de Laporte, Anecdotes dramatiques, 3 tom. (Paris: Veuve Duchesne, 1775)
  A searchable version of the text in page image format. Despite the title, this work contains a great deal of factual information, enlivened in places by anecdotal material. The Introduction à l'index provides a useful guide to the content and to the approach adopted in creating the index, and therefore its use.