In German spoken theatre, prompt books used to be written by multiple participants engaging in diverse manuscript practices which continually revise the unfixed literary text within its theatrical context. Based on examples of the vast Hamburg »Theatre-Library« from the 1770s to 1820s, this study proposes a transdisciplinary approach towards handwritten artefacts in modern European theatre. Martin Jörg Schäfer and Alexander Weinstock examine the many-handed creation, handwritten transformation and often decades of use of prompt books in a time increasingly dominated by print. This perspective changes our notion of theatre history around 1800 as well as that of literature and authorship.
Chapter 4. Creating a Prompt Book, Two at a Time: Scribes and Multi- Layered Revisions for the Hamburg Production of Kotzebue''s Die Sonnen-Jungfrau (1790–1826)Seiten 81 - 140
Chapter 5. Prompt Book Practices in Context: The "Hamburg Shakespeare" between Handwriting and Print, the Audience and Censorship Demands (1770s–1810s and beyond)Seiten 141 - 186
Chapter 6. Doing Literature in Theatre: Schiller''s Adaptation of Lessing''s Nathan der Weise between Prompting and Stage Managing (1800s–1840s)Seiten 187 - 244
