Early Melodrama

Part of a series of sixteen volumes that provides for the first time ever a comprehensive set of works from a full century of musical theater in the United States of America. Many of the volumes contain musical scores and librettos that have never before been published. The work that leads off this volume, The Voice of Nature, is generally considered the first melodrama to be performed in America, and the earliest surviving complete work composed for American professional theater. It is also the first to be written by a playwright boom in America.

Karl Kroeger University of Colorado

Introduction to the Series, About this Volume, Sources, Introduction toThe Voice of Nature, Works Cited, Introduction to The Aethiop; or, The Child of the Desert, Bibliographical Notes, Index of Musical Numbers, The Voice of Nature, Libretto, Incidental Music, The Aethiop; or, The Child of the Desert, William Dimond, portrait