Abstract

Music

The article presents information on the book on music "William Dunlap: A Study of His Life and Works, and of His Place in Contemporary Culture," by Oral Sumner Coad. It is likely to stand as the authoritative biography of a pioneer American craftsman in painting, playwrighting, and stage management. The story of Dunlap's prolonged struggle against poverty and physical weakness, of his relations with famous actors and writers of the early nineteenth century, and of his part in forming the early American drama after accepted English and German models, is of intrinsic interest, though unmarked in the telling by imagination or peculiar grace of style. The book is sound in scholarship, and the author carries conviction in his estimates of the ultimate value of Dunlap's work.