Literary Record and Bibliography of Thomas J Dibdin - MANUSCRIPT

Unpublished manuscript identifying and classifying the song lyrics written by the English dramatist, composer and theatre manager Charles Dibdin Junior (1768-1833), researched and written by his descendant. Edward Rimbault Dibdin has adapted a tabbed notebook to contain around 800 single line song entries noting titles, first lines, plays and books as well as including a list of 63 actual book titles to the rear - this latter list including manuscript resources available to Dibdin for his research. Prolific and successful, Charles Dibdin ended up managing Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London where he staged variety shows which included a new kind of aquatic theatre in a large water tank. Edward Rimbault Dibdin (1853-1941) was a curator and writer who collected material relating to his distinguished forebear and published a bibliography of Charles Dibdin in 1938 - for which this manuscript was no doubt preparatory work.

DESCRIPTION: Black roan notebook (195x125mm) with leather reinforcement to the spine and Edward Dibdin’s paper label; wear to corners. Decorative endpapers with bookseller’s ticket for a Liverpool stationer (where Dibdin has just retired as Director of the Walker Gallery) and below, Dibdin’s bibliophilic bookplate. Dibdin has written and corrected a manuscript title page removing the phrase ‘books relating to’ and replacing it with ‘the songs and other lyrics by’ Charles Dibdin. Overleaf Dibdin sets out his bibliographical criteria for his listings - plays underlined in red, with further codes for Epigrams and ‘poems not lyrics’. He notes that he had indexed 716 songs by 1925 and a reached 753 by 1926.