From the Greek for “unpublished things,” the term “anecdote” entered English in the late seventeenth century by way of a translated secret history and quickly became a byword for all manner of literary commodities. Like secret history itself, published anecdotes often operated at the slippery boundary of fact and fiction, incorporating features of the picaresque, life writing, stage drama, jest, and satire. Typically short and often topical, they were ideally suited to a periodical and print marketplace sustained by the speedy reproduction and repackaging of familiar content. Anecdotes about the theater, and about the star actors and actresses who dominated it, were particularly popular. The new collection, English Theatrical Anecdotes, 1660 – 1800, examines these “short, often humorous and titillating, sometimes moralistic tales of theater people” (1) and considers the ways they contributed to the rise of celebrity culture. Edited by Heather Ladd and Leslie Ritchie for University of...

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