Selling Celebrity: Actors’ Portraits in Bell’s Shakespeare and Bell’s British Theatre

Abstract

In the last quarter of the eighteenth century, John Bell commissioned hundreds of actor portraits in dramatic roles, which were published as book illustrations in the series Bell’s Shakespeare and Bell’s British Theatre. These portraits contributed significantly to the emergent culture of theatrical celebrity. While paintings and engraved prints of actors mostly peddled a mode of celebrity that was sustained by audience applause within the theater walls, Bell’s illustrations created a parallel visibility for the performers outside the theater, which was only tenuously and unevenly associated with their stage celebrity. The performers’ images circulating through Bell’s books realigned the contours of the late eighteenth-century market for theatrical celebrity.

Stage beauties: Actresses and celebrity culture in the long eighteenth century

“…For an engaging and comprehensive discussion of theatrical prints of actresses in Bell's British Theatre, see Aparna Gollapudi's “Selling Celebrity” in Eighteenth‐Century Life (2012). Jennie Batchelor's ground breaking digital project on The Ladies Magazine , promises to be essential to further research on the relationship between actresses and periodicals.…”