Found old (1907) book today -- Successful Entertainments

Successful Entertainments by Willis N. Bugbee 140 pp. (numbered)
"For Children of Five to Fifteen Years"
Published by The Penn Publishing Company (Philadelphia). Copyright 1907.
"Boards 75 cents Paper 40 Cents" [I have the "paper" edition] It measures 7-1/4" x 4-5/8" x 5/8" thick.

"A Variety of Unique and Pleasing Entertainments Including Japanese Frolics, Holiday and Seasonal Plays, Historic Dialogues, together with Literary and Legendary Exercises"

The entire back cover is an advertisement for "The National School of Elocution and Oratory 4012 Chestnut Street Philadelphia"

Just a few of the titles in the Table of Contents: Japanese Frolics, The Coming of the Winter Fairies, The Harvest Festival, Father Time's Thanksgiving, The Land of the Barefoot Boy, several Christmas season recitations/enactments, etc., including several historical reenactments.

There are also five pantomime skits: On a Busy Street, At a Railway Station, Too Late for the Train, A Rainy Day, and On the Market.

Costume suggestions are given for each presentation.

As you can probably tell, I am smitten with this book. I arrived at the yard sale about noon so I consider myself quite fortunate to have found it in the jumble of items which remained.

 

Land of the Barefoot Boy? Wow. Sounds like a great book! I should look for a copy, and it sounds like something Fig would like...

 

That sounds so cool! Are there any illustrations?

 

Kentworld, it is a sweet book from another time.

I forgot to mention that in addition to costuming there is a scenery list for each "entertainment."

In "The Postman" there is a poem which ends with "What matters it whom he may serve -- The pauper or the king? For he himself may never know what tidings he doth bring."

Young lady -- "Oh Postman, tell me if you bring a message sweet for me-- a letter from a sailor boy who sails upon the sea."

The Postman replies: "Oh pretty maid, this letter do I bring for you to-day; But what it is, or whence it came, I really cannot say."

The Postman uses the same (bolded above) line each time he delivers a piece of mail.

 

Bakersgma, there are no illustrations except on the cover.
There are diagrams for on-stage movements (placement of actors) for some of the presentations.

 

Seems there was a reprint in 1924 -- Willis N. Bugbee Co., was a publisher and Willis himself penned some stuff. Also, one can download some of his offerings.

Not much on Google, but the book is around...

http://classify.oclc.org/classify2/...xt="Bugbee,+Willis+N.+(Willis+Newton),+1870-"

https://openlibrary.org/publishers/Willis_N._Bugbee_Co.

 

Kentworld, thank you so much for the links. I started looking at them and hope to finish reading them tomorrow.

I'm wondering if my book was published while he was a student or perhaps a teacher at the "elocution" school. I did not see my 1907 book, and 1907 was before any of the dates I did see in the links I read.

He certainly appears to have been a prolific writer and eventually had his own company publishing his books.

One of the links you provided had a photograph of his (and his wife's) headstone. They both lived to a ripe old age.

 

I found some other information for you. For one of the sources I won't be able to provide a link, since it is in a subscription database. So I will give you a transcription. Looks like you already have seen the picture of his headstone. (Here's another link, to Find A Grave: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=39884442)

There are 10 holding libraries listed in WorldCat for the 1907 edition:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/successful-entertainments/oclc/3829897&referer=brief_results

The above link may show holding libraries for both editions. I changed it on my screen but am not sure that this will show for you.

I found his obituary in the Syracuse Post Standard of April 8, 1954. This is the one for which I can't provide a link, but will transcribe below. I had also thought the woman buried next to him was his wife, but it turns out to be his sister. He was not married, and it appears that Willis and his sister Grace were very close and even traveled together.

Willis N. Bugbee, Author, Publisher, Dies in Hospital

Willis N. Bugbee of 60 Turtle st., widely-known author and publisher, died Tuesday night in Syracuse General Hospital following a brief illness.

Mr. Bugbee was a school teacher at Parish and Chittenango before organizing the Willis N. Bugbee Co., publishers and distributors of dramatic literature, in 1913.

The author of many poems and travel books, his noted works include "The Spirit of Finland" and a travel book, "Drifting Down the St. Lawrence." Mr. Bugbee was a member of the Danforth United Church, the Oneida River Grange, and the Friends of Reading.

Surviving is a sister, Miss Grace M. Bugbee of Syracuse, who accompanied her brother on many travels to gather information for his books.

Services will be at 2 p.m. tomorrow at the Fairchild and Meech Funeral Home, the Rev. Gerald E. Boyce, pastor of Danforth United Church, officiating. Interment will be Tully Cemetery. Friends may call from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 today at the funeral home.

 

And yes, this book is interesting to me. While researching the culminating paper for a Master's degree, I read quite a bit about school and community theatricals in the early 20th century. When this book was published there was a great interest in performance at several levels. All sorts of amateur theatre and pageantry, as well as experimental professional theatre, were burgeoning.

 

Figtree3, could you please message me so that I can piggy-back on your message. I want to discuss this book as well as something else (which would be a big thank-you to you for an earlier bit of information you shared back in August 2013 "over there," but I don't want to embarrass you by continually putting up "thank you, Figtree," posts all over this website).

 

Do I have things set up here so that you can't send me a message? if so, sorry about that. I have sent just one message through this site... I'll try to figure out how to do it again.

 

OK, I figured it out and sent you a message through this site.

 

Received and replied.

 

Cool info, Fig. Thanks for posting. Back in the day, it wasn't so weird for brothers and sisters to live together -- it was practical in many ways. However, I couldn't imagine living with my brother, LOL! I hope that some drama/elementary teachers are aware that stuff like this can be downloaded for free -- might be fun to try some really "old school" stuff.

 

Thank you! I did write back, as you may have seen already.

 

The kids might think they were back in the days of ancient history!

 

Too true!

 

My uncle always lived with one of his sisters. He never married and was the stereotypical bachelor. He lived with us until I was about five and we moved to the country. He wanted to stay in the city, so he moved in with Aunt Willa. After a couple of years, Aunt Dorila was widowed and moved into the same "block" as they called big apartment buildings in those days and he moved in with her. Aunt Willa was the oldest and passed away shortly after. At the end, he and Aunt Dee moved to a small apt. building right downtown - the rents were cheaper - and they had efficiency apartments across the hall from each other. She cooked his meals and did his laundry and he gave her a stipend out of his social security. I can picture them putting on these types of entertainments when they were young.