The Lottery Ticket and Lawyer's Clerk

The Lottery Ticket and Lawyer's Clerk is a farce in one act by Samuel Beazley (1786–1851)[1], with attribution to Louis-Benoît Picard (1769-1828). and/or Jean Baptiste Radet (1752-1830).

(For instance a version published in New York and Philadelphia by Turner and Fisher [ca. 1830], is listed in the Hathi Trust Digital Library as by Beazley as well as both French authors.)[2]

The shortened title, The Lottery Ticket, is often found.

The original text

An adaptation of La Maison en Loterie, by Louis-Benoit Picard and Jean Baptiste Radet (who are often mentioned, singly or together, as additional authors of the English text).

The Beazley version was first Performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in December 1826. First published as The Lottery Ticket and Lawyer's Clerk, with no author mentioned, by C. Chapple in 1827.

Translations and adaptations

There is also a later one act farce, entitled The Lottery Ticket, or The Lawyers's Clerk , credited to John Baldwin Buckstone (1802-1879), and published by Samuel French (No CXXXVII in the series The Minor Drama, 1880). Possibly a new version of Beazley's original or it was simply wrongly attributed, as mentioned in the Harvard Library catalogue entry[3] on this text, which addresses this anomaly with the following entry:

"Acting copy. An adaptation of La maison en loterie by Picard and Radet. Wrongly attributed to John Baldwin Buckstone."

(See also Hathi Trust Digital Library catalogue entry[4] and Caliban Book Shop website[5])

Performance history in South Africa

1846: First performed as The Lottery Ticket, or the Lawyer's Clerk in Cape Town by the All the World's a Stage on Friday, 4 September, with The Brigand (Planché) and The Original (Morton).

1855: Performed in Cape Town on Thursday 26 July 1855 by Sefton Parry as part of his farewell performance, alongside A Phenomenon in a Smock Frock (Brough) and Buried Alive, or The Visit to Japan (M'Pherson).

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Beazley

https://archive.org/stream/lotteryticketan00picagoog#page/n4/mode/2up

http://id.lib.harvard.edu/aleph/002662175/catalog

https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001426280

https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/012435957

Library of Congress Internet Archive[6]

F.C.L. Bosman, 1928. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel I: 1652-1855. Pretoria: J.H. de Bussy. [7]: pp. 415, 433

http://www.calibanbooks.com/pages/books/C000026164/j-b-buckstone/the-lottery-ticket-or-the-lawyers-clerk-a-farce-in-one-act-the-minor-drama-no-cxxxvii#sthash.L3CpamDD.dpuf

https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011207781]

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