Pe UNIVERSITY STUDIES 
WoL. X11 JANUARY-APRIL-JULY 1913 Nos. 1, 2,3 
THE FIRST LONDON THEATRE: 
MATERIALS FOR A HISTORY 
BY CHARLES WILLIAM WALLACE 
INTRODUCTORY SURVEY 
The story of the first London theatre, from the date of its 
inception by James Burbage in 1576 to the full florescence of 
Shakespeare in 1599, has a human interest of its own, and at the 
same time furnishes a historical background of some of the inti- 
mate personal conditions that made the dramatic and histrionic 
achievements of Shakespeare and his associates at the Globe 
supreme. That story, based upon a large collection of documents, 
bringing us into close personal contact with Richard and Cuthbert 
Burbage, their father, and the life in and about the Theatre, may 
here be told in a brief survey of the human side as a help to the 
student in unraveling the voluminous records. The complete his- 
tory, with other added documents, must wait yet awhile. Around 
the business arrangements made for building and managing the 
Theatre, centre the records of the Burbage-Brayne controversy, 
ranging over a period of nearly twenty years; and about the 
destruction of the Theatre in 1598, grew the voluminous docu- 
ments of the Burbage-Allen litigation of 1599 to 1602, recount- 
ing their business relations from the first. It is these two inter- 
woven series of records that the present collection presents in 
entirety. 
The twenty-one-year lease of the grounds on which the Theatre 
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