Classical subjects – especially tragedy, epic and mythology – found some of their most vibrant afterlives in nineteenth-century Britain on the popular stage where they reached new audiences, as well as entertaining those already familiar with their ancient sources with a fresh perspective. After decades of neglect these popular comic adaptations have experienced a revival in scholarly interest in the past two decades; an interest which is intensifying among classicists today: as M.-G. explains in this pioneering anthology, not only are classical burlesques important for Victorian responses to canonical literature but they also provide unparalleled evidence for nineteenth-century social and cultural history.

M.-G. has already staked out the importance of such evidence regarding Cassandra; her latest contribution, focused on ‘tragic heroines and Victorian negotiations with gender’ (p. 17), makes a significant advance in opening up the field for further research and teaching. Her present anthology presents the texts of four such plays with critical apparatus, notes and introduction, for the first time. M.-G. has chosen burlesques by some of the most prolific authors and staged at some of the most famous London venues: Edward L. Blanchard's Antigone Travestie (1845), Robert Brough's Medea; or, the Best of Mothers with a Brute of a Husband (1856) and Francis Talfourd's Alcestis; the Original Strong-Minded Woman (1850) and Electra in a New Electric Light (1859).

Previously only available in relatively inaccessible acting editions (except Blanchard's, where this is the first printed edition) or in the Lord Chamberlain's Collection, the original manuscripts submitted for censorship are now held in the British Library's Manuscript Reading Room, where they are preserved thanks to theatrical censorship between 1737–1968: it is a nice touch that M.-G. includes photographs of the original, handwritten scripts, showing just how illegible they can be.

These lively entertainments greedily recombined anything and everything in a constant quest for novelty: they targeted sources from canonical literature and new novels to fairy tales and news stories, combining various dramatic styles with song and dance, while peppering the dialogue with unrelenting puns, topical jokes and comic anachronisms. As M.-G. notes on p. 183 n. 140, expected and apparent deaths were often avoided or surprisingly reversed: here, the despairing Creon is rejoined by Antigone and Hermon (for Haemon), who ‘make a night of it’ to celebrate their survival (p. 84); Alcestis ends with the engagement of two new characters, in addition to the reunion of Alcestis and Admetus; Medea's knife transforms into a ‘jester's bauble’, while Creusa, who had returned custody of the children to Medea, reappears alive and well; and Aegisthus and Clytemnestra, having poisoned each other and left in search, we must suppose, of ‘an anti-dote’, leave Nemesis to announce that Electra will marry Pylades and Orestes, now ruler of Mycenae, will marry Chrysothemis (now his cousin).

Despite these happier endings, however, serious issues are raised: divorce, marriage and the fate of abandoned wives and children. Following on from her interest in Cassandra as New Woman, M.-G. has chosen plays which engage in different ways with the ‘Woman Question’.

The introduction which explains this choice is scholarly but accessible: M.-G. beautifully introduces the wider context of Victorian classicism and popular entertainments by taking the reader on a virtual tour of London's cultural scene in the 1850s. Those unfamiliar with burlesque and its Victorian theatrical context do need to be patient until pp. 9ff., a consequence of the anthology's relevance across fields beyond Classics. Having set the scene, M.-G. clearly and concisely illuminates her four chosen plays in light of contemporary debates about the social status of women. In this relatively short space, she keeps a strict focus, making judicious use of references. However, I would have liked some discussion of spectators at these particular plays and venues – especially since some plays included Greek characters (e.g. Alcestis begins with ‘please ring the bell’ transliterated into Greek; Electra paratext 34 makes an English pun of a Homeric epithet).

The ‘list of representative nineteenth-century classical burlesques’, tucked away at the end of the introduction, is an important resource; while not M.-G.'s explicitly stated aim, this will hopefully inspire further study and research, as well as enabling readers to locate this specific group of plays within the wider genre. Encompassing an interesting range of playwrights, subjects, dates and venues (some outside London), this list counterbalances the fact that each of M.-G.'s chosen plays is based on a Greek tragedy (where the majority of scholarship on classical burlesques to date has focused). As a first port of call, it would perhaps be more useful if the rationale for inclusion were explained, and for the references to more comprehensive lists, given in note 35, to be clearly listed as further resources. It is a shame that some endnotes to the introduction (pp. 10–11) are jumbled: correspondence appears intended as follows: ref. 46 (Aristophanes) = note 49; ref. 47 (entertainments) = note 50; ref. 48 (Lemprière) = note 51; ref. 49 (Electra) = note 52; ref. 50 (Burnand) = note 53; ref. 51 (ILN) = note 54; ref. 52 (ILN ibid.) = note 55; ref. 53 (Stray) = note 46; ref. 54 (Richards) = note 47; ref. 55 (Hall) = note 48. However, this is a small flaw in an otherwise beautifully-presented anthology.

The critical apparatus and notes are invaluable. M.-G.'s wise decision to present clean scripts, each followed by appendices of alternative readings and omitted lines, facilitates enjoyment and study, while her handy notes explain both classical and contemporary allusions. Since classical burlesques relied on topicalities and wordplay, and often played with how much audiences did – or did not – understand, many of the jokes can otherwise be difficult to appreciate. M.-G.'s skilfully concise but informative notes explain classical mythology and characters, gloss some dated words and give contextual information which contemporary spectators were expected to know. The vast majority are well judged (although ‘French leave’ [Medea 1.1.211] could have been usefully glossed alongside OED definitions of ‘harried’ and ‘tormented’).

The two explanations which I would have liked to see only illustrate the extent to which burlesques were packed with references. For example, at Antigone Travestie 66, Creon explains that ‘An insurrection would have cracked this Crown/ Had not Sir Peter Laurie put it down’. M.-G.'s brief biography does not explain that, in December 1844, his political opinions were parodied in Dickens’s 1844 Christmas story, Chimes, staged at the Adelphi and Lyceum theatres. Reviewers who noted that ‘Alderman Cute (who, wishing to “put down” everything, suicide included, is evidently a satirical sketch of Sir Peter Laurie)’, picked up on his identifying catchphrase, apparently familiar from Punch, which satirically portrayed ‘Peter the Great (ass)’ as ‘omnipotent at “putting down” all delinquents’.Footnote ¹ Similarly, at Medea 1.3.25–8, when Apollo mentions that ‘our sister Luna’ is angry with ‘some astronomer’ for ‘saying that she hasn't got an axis’: M.-G. helpfully notes that Artemis was equated with Selene, but does not explain Brough's allusion to a fierce, wide-ranging controversy sparked by furious letters recently exchanged in The Times (first, 8 April 1856, by Jelinger Symons, a school inspector).

These two examples, outweighed by the many more unpacked in the notes, reinforce the importance of M.-G.'s achievement here in revealing the ‘Unseen constellation of meanings established between the audience and the performance’ (p. 18). It is a mark of how trailblazing this anthology is that the title does not indicate M.-G.'s unifying theme: ‘the social progress of women through the 1840s and 1850s’ (p. 13); it is, however, precisely M.-G.'s fine balance between pursuing this theme, while suggesting the bigger picture of classical burlesque, which makes this anthology such an invaluable source for scholars and students of nineteenth-century reception and tragic or mythological afterlives, as well as readers in search of (still amusing) classical entertainment.