LENO

ONE: The earlier of the two drafts, titled 'It Was Top of the Bill | The Story of Music Hall. | by | W. Macqueen-Pope.' 14pp., 4to. Paginated 1-12, with two further pages carrying material to be inserted. With a few autograph emendations, including an addition to the ending. Macqueen-Pope writes knowledgeably and with a passion for his theme, which is that 'Music Hall reflected public taste even more accurately than did the "legitimate" Theatre because it was created by the people themselves. The basis of the Drama of the Theatre - was religion.

Leno (1824-94) was a printer, publisher, poet and editor, and a significant figure in nineteenth-century radicalism. In 1845, while a printer, he led a group of radical workers who started a Young Men's Improvement Society and circulated a manuscript newspaper entitled the 'Attempt'. He then became branch secretary of the local Chartists. In 1849 the 'Attempt' became a printed journal, the 'Uxbridge Pioneer'. In 1861 he was editor of the 'Poetic Magazine' and in 1881 of the 'Anti-tithe Journal'.