In 1806, Longman & Co. publishers commissioned the accomplished actress, playwright, and novelist Elizabeth Inchbald to compose a series of prefatory remarks for the plays to be included in their British Theatre series. One hundred and twenty-five in all, each of the plays for Longman's British Theatre was originally published and sold separately at a rate of about one per week. Once the series was complete, the plays were bound together and sold as a twenty-five-volume set. As the surviving diary entries from the two-year period during which she wrote her Remarks testify, the task proved both arduous and unrelenting for Inchbald, especially as she had no hand in selecting the plays to be included and no control over the order in which she was asked to compose her critical commentaries. Working almost constantly, no sooner had she read one play, drafted her remarks, and copyedited the proof, than she had to turn to the next play sent by Longman, collect her thoughts, and start the process all over again. For the most part, as Annibel Jenkins has noted, “[T]here seems to be no pattern of publishing by date or genre; a tragedy by Shakespeare came out one week and a contemporary comedy the next.” At one point, the strain of this process was so unbearable that Inchbald even tried to renege on her contractual obligations, writing to Longman, “begging to decline any further progress.” This request, as her first biographer, James Boaden, records, Longman “could not be expected to permit; and she was therefore compelled to remark through the whole year.” In the event, and however “dreadful” the task may have been for Inchbald, the widely advertised series proved a “great commercial success,” and Inchbald's Remarks have come down to us as one of the first great achievements in English dramatic criticism of the early nineteenth century.

中文翻译：

---

论戏剧概率的艺术：伊丽莎白·英奇博德对英国剧院的评论

1806 年，朗文公司的出版商委托有成就的女演员、剧作家和小说家伊丽莎白·英奇博德撰写了一系列序言，以便将这些戏剧纳入他们的英国剧院系列。一共一百二十五部，每部剧都是朗文的英国剧院最初以大约每周一个的速度单独出版和销售。该系列完成后，这些剧本被装订在一起，并作为 25 卷集出售。作为她写她的两年期间的幸存日记条目评论事实证明，这项任务对 Inchbald 来说既艰巨又无情，尤其是因为她无法选择要收录的剧本，也无法控制要求她撰写评论评论的顺序。几乎没完没了地工作，刚看完一出戏，草稿，校对过，就得翻到朗文送来的下一部剧本，整理思绪，重新开始这个过程。在大多数情况下，正如 Annibel Jenkins 所指出的，“[T] 这里似乎没有按日期或流派发布的模式；莎士比亚的悲剧在一个星期上映，下一个当代喜剧上映。” 有一次，这个过程的压力是如此难以忍受，以至于 Inchbald 甚至试图违背她的合同义务，写信给朗文，“乞求拒绝任何进一步的进展”。这个请求，正如她的第一位传记作者詹姆斯·博登（James Boaden）所记录的那样，朗文“不能指望允许；因此她被迫评论贯穿全年。” 在事件中，无论 Inchbald 的任务多么“可怕”，广为宣传的系列证明了“巨大的商业成功”，而 Inchbald 的评论作为 19 世纪早期英国戏剧批评的第一批伟大成就之一。