| Item Description: | Michael Laird, bookseller, description: Folio (approx. 19.5 x 64.5cm) metalcut in the text, one small patch of discolouration with some light dustiness to margins. This playbill records entertainments at the theatre in Sheffield on 19 November 1838. A concert by the Distin family tops the bill, preceding a performance in which “Mr. Cony, proprietor of the celebrated dogs, Hector and Bruin, and Mr. Blanchard, the popular pantomimist and melo-dramatic actor [...] make their first appearance in an Indian spectacle, called the Cherokee Chief.” In the 1830s and 1840s Barkham Cony (1802-1858) and Edwin Blanchard became the the most prominent performers of “dog dramas”. Hector and Bruin, Cony’s two trained Newfoundlands, played significant parts in these theatrical entertainments and became well-known in both Britain and America. Cony in fact died in Chicago on an American tour in 1858. The metalcut at the foot of the playbill depicts a dog rushing to defend a child from attack by a snake. |
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