The Cousins
The Cousins is a play attributed to James Sheridan Knowles (1784-1862)[1]
Contents
The original text
No mention of a Knowles play by this name has been found anywhere, except in F.C.L. Bosman's 1980 history of South African theatre, where it is referred to as "Reminiscenses of Sherdidan Knowles' The Cousins".
It may possibly have been a performance of a well known comic scene from Knowles' best known play, The Hunchback, in which Helen teaches her cousin and lover Modus how to woo.
There is also extant in the British Museum the manuscript of a comic opera in two acts (18th century) by anonymous author called The Cousins, or Love and Fear[2] and The Cousins, or A Woman's Promise and a Lover's Vow, a novel in 3 volumes by "Mrs. Ross" (). . The Cousins may of course have been adaptations of any one of these texts, mistakenly attributed to Knowles by the company by Bosman.
Translations and adaptations
Performance history in South Africa
1871: Performed (according to Bosman, 1980, as "reminiscences of" Sheridan Knowles's The Cousins four times by the D'Arcy Read Company in the Mutual Hall, Cape Town (on 9, 11, 16 and 23 October), with The Ring and the Keeper (Wooler) and Belgravia, or Servantgolism ()
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Sheridan_Knowles
F.C.L. Bosman. 1980. Drama en Toneel in Suid-Afrika, Deel II, 1856-1912. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik: pp.250-251
Order of the Trustees. 1877. Catalogue of additions to the manuscripts in the British Museum in the year mdcccliv-mdccclxxv (1861-1875), Oxford University[3]
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