Excerpt from Gretchen: A Play, in Four ActsThis piece was produced at the Olympic Theatre under the lessee-ship of Lord Londesborough, on Monday, 24th March, 1879, and was received with exceptional favour by a crowded house. On the ensuing Saturday morning, after an experience offive nights, the company received a fortnight's notice of dismissal, because (to quote a letter ad dressed to me by the ostensible manager of the theatre), Lord Londesborough is not disposed to lose any money, and the first week barely paid its working expenses. That is to say, the company, who had laboured at rehearsal for nearly six weeks, were unexpectedly thrown out of employ, and the play, which had cost its author ten months of incessant toil, was held up to public contempt as a conspicuous failure, because the receipts of the first week (in mid-lent) showed, not a loss, but a profit of only ten pounds per night on the working expenses. Within four davs of the publication of the notice of dismissal, i ascertained that Lord Londesborough had arranged to transfer the theatre to another manager.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.