Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: HIS CAREER AT THE THEATRE ROYAL, SADLER'S WELLS. 1844—1845. It was shortly after the close of his last engagement at Liverpool, in the spring of 1844, that he conceived the idea, with his friend Mrs. Warner, of becoming, jointly with Mr. T. L. Greenwood and her husband, lessee of the Theatre Royal, Sadler's Wells, which was opened under the management of Mrs. Warner and Mr. Phelps, the latter being stage manager, on the Whit Monday of that year. Mr. Phelps now commenced his great life-work, which was to continue for over eighteen years, and in these eighteen years he put, as Tom Taylor said after his death, a whole life. The following address was issued :— " Mrs. Warner and Mr. Phelps have embarked in the management and performance of Sadler's Wells Theatre in the hope of eventually rendering it what a theatre ought to be—a place for justly representing the works of our great dramatic poets. This undertaking is commenced at a time when the stages which have been exclusively called ' National' are closed, or devoted to very different objects from that of presenting the real drama of England, and when the law has placed all theatres upon an equal footing of security and respectability, leaving no difference except in the object and conduct of the management. These circumstances justify the notion that each separate division of our immense metropolis, with its 2,000,000 of inhabitants, may have its own well-conducted theatre within a reasonable distance of the homes of its patrons. " For the North of London, they offer an entertainment selectedfrom the first stock drama in the world, reinforced by such novelties as can be procured by diligence and liberality, intending that the quality of their novelties will constantly improve, as time will be given to procure and...