Robinson Crusoe, or Harlequin Friday and the King of the Caribee Islands!

Robinson Crusoe, or Harlequin Friday and the King of the Caribee Islands! is a burlesque by Henry J. Byron (1835-1884)

The original text

This is one of three works written (or co-written) by Byron, all based on Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe.

(The others are Robinson Crusoe, or The Injun Bride and the Injured Wife (a burlesque written with W.S. Gilbert, Thomas Hood, H. S. Leigh, and Arthur Sketchley, and produced at the Haymarket Theatre, London on 6 July 1867 and a pantomime called Robinson Crusoe, or Friday and the Fairies, 1868)

Robinson Crusoe, or Harlequin Friday and the King of the Caribee Islands! is described as a "grotesque pantomime opening", invented and written by Henry James Byron". Also referred to as a burlesque in the Samuel French edition.

First performed at the Royal Princess's Theatre on the 26th of December, 1860, and published by Samuel French

Translations and adaptations

Performance history in South Africa

Sources

Facsimile version of the S. French edition of 1860, Hathi Thrust Digital Library[1]

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 1923. (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.

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