All roads lead to London and to the West End theater. This book presents a new history of the beginnings of the modern world of London entertainment. Putting female-centered, gender-challenging managements and styles at the center, it redraws the map of performance history in the Victorian capital of the world. Bratton argues for the importance in Victorian culture of venues like the little Strand Theater and the Gallery of Illustration in Regent Street in the experience of mid-century London, and of plays drawn from the work of Charles Dickens as well as burlesques by the early writers of...