Cool Discovery of the Day, Issue #1

Title page of a 1758 book titled "Angellica: a Comedy in Two Acts".

As I was browsing my way through the Penn State library website to determine what they had there that I’d need to use, I ran across an electronic copy of the work whose title page is featured here: Angelica; or Quixote in Petticoats, a Comedy in Two Acts. This 1758 play was not written by Charlotte Lennox, though there’s a note at the end of the dedication noting that they took Angelica (originally Arabella) and most of the plot wholesale from The Female Quixote by “Mrs. Lenox.” Nice to give credit for that much, at least, and it speaks to the contemporary popularity of the novel that it inspired this knock-off play.

Leave a comment