The Creole, or Love's Fetters

The Creole, or Love's Fetters is a drama in three acts by Shirley Brooks (1816–1874)[1].

Also found written as The Creole; or, Love's Fetters or simply as The Creole.

An rather illogical variation of the title appears in F.C.L. Bosman's history of the South African productions by Sefton Parry, where it is listed as The Creole, or Love Letters.

The original text

A play about interracial love and slavery, set in Port Louis, Isle de France (Mauritius), during the revolution, it was first produced at the Lyceum Theatre, London, on 8 April 1847 and published by Thomas Hailes Lacy in that year(?).

Translations and adaptations

Performance history in South Africa

1862: Performed in the Theatre Royal, Cape Town, by Sefton Parry and company on 2 April, as part of a benefit for Samuel Wolfe. Though correctly ascribed to Shirley, amusingly the title is wrongly given (by the company or by Bosman, 1980) as The Creole, or Love Letters. The accompanying farce also appears to have been wrongly titled as The Goose that laid the Golden Eggs. (Bosman 1980, suggests that this was probably a version of The Goose with the Golden Eggs by Mayhew and Edwards.)

1866: Performed as The Creole in the Theatre Royal, Cape Town, by the Le Roy-Duret Company on 22 March, with The Four Sisters, or Woman's Worth and Women's Wrongs (Bernard).