This is an edition of the complete correspondence of William Dean Howells, novelist, playwright, and editor of The Atlantic, and Lawrence Barrett, professional actor, promoter, and repertory company owner. It also includes the complete scripts of two plays and a partial script of one other lost play that Howells wrote for Barrett to produce.

Recently discovered papers in the Barrett family collection shed light on Howells's extensive career as a man of letters and the role he played in the nascent American theatrical tradition. The letters also illuminate the economics of popular theatrical production and audience response in the Gilded Age.

1. Staging Howells documents the tumultuous and often amusing relationship between the two very different men, as well as the nature of their collaboration. Readers are thus provided with an entertaining portrait of the consummate showman Barrett as well as with a more detailed understanding of Howells as a complete literary talent.