Actress Minnie
Maddern Fiske

Langdon Mitchell
The Picture Book for "Becky Sharp"
a Play in Four Acts
New York: Herbert S. Stone, 1899
Manuscript Division
Gift of Olive Kooken, 1961

Scrapbook, ca. 1899
Page 2
Manuscript Division (166.9)

Becky Sharp Playbill,
ca. 1931-32
Manuscript Division (166.10)

Minnie Maddern Fiske became one of the best known actresses on the American stage, at the turn of the twentieth century. Fiske specialized in the plays of Henrik Ibsen and William Shakespeare and her interpretations of Ibsen's heroines were especially acclaimed. In 1890, she married playwright and theatrical manager Harrison Grey Fiske. In 1904, at the Manhattan Theatre, in New York, Fiske starred in Langdon Mitchell's Becky Sharp, an adaptation of Vanity Fair (1847-48) by William Makepeace Thackeray. The story is set against the background of the Battle of Waterloo. Becky, from a "lower class" family, befriends Amelia, a rich girl at school. Becky manages to be accepted by Amelia's family and friends, but ruins her own life. Fiske toured the show in 1931.

Sketch for scene, 1, from the
script of Becky Sharp, ca. 1899
Holograph manuscript
Manuscript Division (166.10)

Sketch and page 7 for scene 1,
from the script of Becky Sharp, ca. 1899
Holograph manuscript
Manuscript Division
Gift of Olive Kooken, 1961 (166B)