filter_framesThe Harry Watkins Diary Digital Edition

Hardworking actor, playwright, and stage manager Harry Watkins (1825–94) was a prolific diarist. For fifteen years (1845–60), Watkins regularly recorded the plays he saw, the roles he performed, the books he read, and his impressions of current events. Performing across the United States, Watkins collaborated with preeminent performers and producers, recording his successes and failures as well as his encounters with celebrities such as P. T. Barnum, Junius Brutus Booth, Edwin Forrest, Anna Cora Mowatt, and Lucy Stone. His is the only known diary of substantial length and scope written by a U.S. actor before the Civil War—making Watkins, essentially, the antebellum equivalent of Samuel Pepys.

This searchable digital edition includes the entire uncorrected text of Watkins’s diary, encoded in XML, prepared in accordance with guidelines established by the Text Encoding Initiative (https://www.tei-c.org). It is archived by the University of Michigan Library as a companion to the University of Michigan Press volume: A Player and a Gentleman: The Diary of Harry Watkins, Nineteenth-Century US American Actor, eds. Amy E. Hughes and Naomi J. Stubbs (University of Michigan Press, 2018), https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.9290953.

The University of Michigan Library provides access to these materials for educational and research purposes. These materials are believed to be in the public domain in the United States; however, if you decide to use any of these materials, you are responsible for making your own legal assessment and securing any necessary permission.

XML-encoded transcripts of the diary volumes are available for download. Click to save a zip file.

Editorial and Production

Editors: Amy E. Hughes (University of Michigan) and Naomi J. Stubbs (LaGuardia Community College, CUNY)

Technology Director: Scott D. Dexter (Alma College)

Editorial Associate: Shane Breaux

Editorial Assistants: Elijah Akinbamidele, Sara Diaz, Danielle Pace, Christine Snyder, Medeli Tavarez, Esteban Toyos

Interns: Irma Aguirre, Jonathan Caba, Raymond Camacho, Gabriella Lira-Pizano, Oliver Reyes, Guilherme de A. Pedroso, Luciana Pinto, Carlos Ramos, Asha Robinson, Aleksander Ruziyev, Trenton Voegeli, Kelly Williams, Cathelyne Yacinthe

Acquiring Editor: LeAnn Fields (Senior Executive Editor, University of Michigan Press)

Production Staff: Kat Hagedorn, Lauren Havens, Jeremy Morse, Chris Powell (all University of Michigan Library)

Advisory Board: Sarah Bay-Cheng (Bowdoin College), Christopher Brick (Eleanor Roosevelt Papers), John W. Frick (Emeritus, University of Virginia), Barbara Wallace Grossman (Tufts University), Beth Luey (Association for Documentary Editing), David Mayer (Emeritus, Manchester University)

For More Information

Selected, corrected, and annotated excerpts from the Harry Watkins Diary are available in the published volume: A Player and a Gentleman: The Diary of Harry Watkins, Nineteenth-Century US American Actor, eds. Amy E. Hughes and Naomi J. Stubbs (University of Michigan Press, 2018) https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.9290953

An untranscribed digital facsimile of the Harry Watkins Diary at Houghton Library, Harvard University:

• Part 1: https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:44573349$1i
• Part 2: https://iiif.lib.harvard.edu/manifests/view/drs:44573350$1i

This project was made possible through the generosity of the City University of New York (Collaborative Incentive Research Grant and PSC-CUNY Research Award programs), National Endowment for the Humanities, American Antiquarian Society, Harvard Theatre Collection (Houghton Library, Harvard University), Society for Theatre Research, Association for Documentary Editing, New England Regional Fellowship Consortium, Leonard and Claire Tow Faculty Travel Fund (Brooklyn College, CUNY), LaGuardia Community College (CUNY)’s Department of English, and the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation.