This work provides an account of seven female playwrights who enjoyed professional success in the late 18th and early 19th century. It discusses the trials and prejudices they endured, ranging from accusations of plagiarism to sexual harassment. Even today, the shadow of oppression has not completely lifted - a female playwright may no longer be a contradiction in terms or an offence to feminine modesty, but she is still battling with a hazardous occupation for a woman.

Getting Into the Act is a vigorous and refreshing account of seven female playwrights who, against all odds, enjoyed professional success in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Ellen Donkin relates fascinating, disturbing tales about the male theatre managers to whom they were indebted, and the trials and prejudices they endured, ranging from accusations of plagiarism to sexual harassment.
This scarred turbulent early history still resonates in the late twentieth-century. The current ratio of female to male playwrights is virtually unchanged. Old patterns of male...