Francis Kirkman

Francis Kirkman (1632 – c. 1680) appears in many roles in the English literary world of the second half of the seventeenth century, as a publisher, bookseller, librarian, author and bibliographer.

Upon being apprenticed to another scrivener he installed his collection of novels and plays in his office, before selling many of them to finance the publication of his own translation of the sixth book of Amadis de Gaul (1652).

From 1657 he was publishing plays, although his partnership with Henry Marsh, Nathaniel Brook and Thomas Johnson ended after they were accused of pirating books, probably an edition of Beaumont and Fletcher's The Scornful Lady.

In 1673 Kirkman wrote and issued under his own name The Counterfeit Lady Unveiled, a fictional autobiography of Mary Carleton, an impostor and bigamist.

In 1661 he published his own play The Presbyterian Lash, based on the notorious story of Zachary Crofton, a minister accused of whipping his maidservant.

He also collected manuscripts, which he published, including A Cure for a Cuckold and The Thracian Wonder (both 1661), and both correctly attributed to John Webster and William Rowley.

This has been described as "a medley in which legendary history, love romance, sententious praise of virginity, rough and tumble clown-play, necromancy and all kinds of diablerie jostle each other".

For instance, Kirkman in 1661 published The Beggars Bush by John Fletcher, Francis Beaumont, and Philip Massinger, pirated from Humphrey Robinson & Anne Moseley.

It must also be an indication of his reputation that Kirkman advertised books for sale at the sign of The John Fletcher's Head, only the second author thought worthy of this, (the first being Jonson).

Shakespeare never This list provided the basis for the work of Gerard Langbaine, which became the main source for English drama to the end of the seventeenth century.

presented and shewn for the merriment and delight of wise men, and the ignorant, as they have been sundry times acted in publique, and private, in London at Bartholomew in the countrey at other faires, in halls and taverns, on several mountebancks stages, at Charing Cross, Lincolns-Inn-Fields, and other places, by several stroleing players, fools, and fidlers, and the mountebancks zanies, with loud laughter, and great applause.Kirkman said the pieces were selected because of their popularity during the Commonwealth between 1642 and 1660, when the theatres were officially closed: – When the publique Theatres were shut up... then all that we could divert ourselves with were these humours and pieces of Plays, which passing under the name of a merry conceited Fellow, called Bottom the Weaver, Simpleton the Smith, John Swabber, or some such title, were only allowed us, and that but by stealth too, and under the pretence of Rope-dancing, or the like; and these being all that was permitted to us, great was the confluence of the Auditors; and these small things were as profitable as any of our late famed Plays.

I have seen the Red Bull Play-House, which was a large one, so full, that as many went back for want of room as had entered; and as meanly as you may think these Drolls, they were then acted by the best Comedeians then and now in being; and I may say, by some exceeded all now living ...He recommends the work for those reading for pleasure, fiddlers, mountebanks seeking a crowd, those undertaking long sea voyages, and strolling players, as “a few ordinary properties is enough to set them up, and get money in any Town in England”.

One droll, The Lame Commonwealth, a canting interlude extracted from The Beggars Bush, includes an additional section which seems to record stagecraft.

It is one of the earliest illustrations of a theatre interior, showing chandeliers and lighting at the front of the stage, a curtained entrance, which may be genuine representations.