The Charcoal Burner or the Dropping Well of Knaresborough

The Charcoal Burner or the Dropping Well of Knaresborough is a play in two (or three) acts by George Almar (fl. 1830-1840)[1]

The original text

First performed at the Surrey Theatre, London, on Wednesday, December 28th, 1832 and published by London, John Dicks, London, in the same year as a play in three acts. Also published (now as a play in two acts) by William Spencer, Boston, in the 1858, and by Samuel French in 1864.

The original text

Translations and adaptations

Performance history in South Africa

1859: In F.C.L. Bosman (1980, pp. 124-5) there is a reference to a production by Charles Fraser in the Cape Town Theatre on 11 July, apparently featuring a play Bosman refers to as The Misanthrope, or the Dropping Well of Knavesboro' [sic] by an unnamed author and an afterpiece called My Valet and I (Wilks). Bosman suggests that the first play may have been the John Ozell's original English version of Le Misanthrope. However this is almost certainly an error, and the play being referred to is probably The Charcoal Burner or the Dropping Well of Knaresborough by George Almar.

Sources

Facsimile version of the Spencer text, Hathi Trust Digital Library [2]

Online Books by George Almar, The Online Books Page [3]

D.C. Boonzaier, 1923. "My playgoing days – 30 years in the history of the Cape Town stage", in SA Review, 9 March and 24 August 1932. (Reprinted in Bosman 1980: pp. 374-439.)

F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1912. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: pp.203-205

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