Richard B. Sheridan

George Colman the Elder

The Rivals and Polly Honeycombe revolve around young women who wish the world would conform to novelistic convention. Unlike most eighteenth-century heroines keen on novel reading, however, Lydia Languish and Polly Honeycombe are neither deluded nor in any real danger. Rather, they inhabit a world in which everyone is engaged in some sort of quixotic performance; the more appealing characters are just willing to admit it. Both farcical and wise, these plays teasingly celebrate the perennial appeal of fiction, while never letting us forget how much it relies upon the everyday rituals of performance. The introduction to this Broadview edition explores the interrelations between print and performance in the eighteenth century, including a detailed and well-illustrated account of what it was like to go to the theater. Appendices include material on the original casts, the often dubious reputation of novel reading and circulating libraries, Sheridan’s high-profile elopement with Elizabeth Linley (which made him a celebrity before he ever staged a word), and the narrative possibilities conjured up by setting The Rivals in the resort city of Bath.

The Rivals and Polly Honeycombe

In this study Professor Sheridan presents a rich and wide-ranging account of the health care of slaves in the British West Indies, from 1680-1834. He demonstrates that while Caribbean island settlements were viewed by mercantile statesmen and economists as ideal colonies, the physical and medical realities were very different. The study is based on wide research in archival materials in Great Britain, the West Indies and the United States. By steeping himself in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sources, Professor Sheridan is able to recreate the milieu of a past era: he tells us what the slave doctors wrote and how they functioned, and he presents a storehouse of information on how and why the slaves sickened and died. By bringing together these diverse medical demographic and economic sources, Professor Sheridan casts new light on the history of slavery in the Americas.

A Medical and Demographic History of Slavery in the British West Indies, 1680-1834

Doctors and Slaves

"Collection of essays written by former students, colleagues, and friends to honor a preeminent economic historian of the Caribbean. Covering period 1650-1850, essays encompass a broad range of topics, with major focus on various aspects of slavery and imperial relations during those years. Excellent introductory essay on Sheridan's contributions to Caribbean economic history. Extremely useful"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.

Essays on the History of the British Caribbean and the Atlantic Economy in Honour of Richard Sheridan

West Indies Accounts

This book covers the changing preference of growing sugar rather than tobacco which had been the leading crop in the trans-Atlantic colonies. The Sugar Islands were Antigua, Barbados, St. Christopher, Dominica, and Cuba through Trinidad. Jamaica has been by far the major producer of sugar, but The Lesser Antilles had the advantage of a shorter sea trip to deliver produce and rum to the European Markets during the 18th and 19th Centuries.

An Economic History of the British West Indies, 1623-1775

Sugar and Slavery

Richard Sheridan

The disease environments and epidemiology. The rise of the South Atlantic system ; The importance of the West Indies ; Malaria and yellow fever ; The Army Medical Board's report ; Early words on epidemiology ; The fever books ; Slave medical manuals -- The medical profession. Recruitment of doctors ; Medical gentlemen and quacks ; Efforts to upgrade the profession ; Medicine in Cuba and North America ; Diploma holders from Europe ; Doctor-scientists and authors ; Jamaican doctor-scientists and authors -- African and Afro-West Indian medicine. The two medical cultures: Africa ; The two medical cultures: West Indies ; Folk medicine ; Yaws and its treatment ; Slave medical attendants -- The Guinea surgeons. "To buy or to breed" ; The Atlantic slave trade ; West Africa and the slave trade ; The Guinea surgeons ; Duties on the coast ; Diseases and their treatment ; Preserving the health of seamen and slaves ; Mortality on the Middle Passage -- Slaves and plantations. The sugar plantation ; Treatment of slaves ; Seasoning imported slaves ; Clothing and housing ; The work force ; Management of absentees' estates -- Labor, diet, and punishment. Cane hole digging and night work ; War and famine ; Hurricanes, wars, and famine ; Pickled and salted fish ; Slave provision grounds ; Calories and protein ; Provisioning slaves in the eastern Caribbean ; The punishment of slaves -- Morbidity and mortality. "Disorders peculiar to the Negroes" ; Sickness and accidents ; Patterns of mortality ; Malnutrition and diseases of infants and children ; Diseases of children and adults -- The problem of reproduction. Patterns of reproduction ; Debate on the population failure ; "To multiply and rear the human species" ' Pro-natalist policies frustrated ; The victimization of black youngsters ; Black women as "work units" and "breeding units" -- Smallpox and slavery. Introduction ; Variolation or inoculation ; Inoculation in Jamaica and England ; The Jamaican vaccine establishment ; Other campaigns against smallpox -- Slave hospitals. Introduction ; The eighteenth-century experience ; Practical rules for hospital management ; Slave hospitals in Guyana ; Slave hospitals in Jamaica ; Critics of hospital management ; Slave hospitals in Cuba and the United States -- Plantation medical practice. The "irregular" practitioners ; Grenada doctors and slaves ; Doctors in the Leeward Islands and Barbados ; Doctor Jonathan Troup of Dominica ; Medical practice in Jamaica ; Doctor john Williamson of Jamaica ; Medical practice in Cuba and the United States ; Costs and benefits -- Slavery and medicine. Slave population attrition ; heroic medicine in the West Indies ; The quality of plantation health care ; An epilogue.

Richard B. Sheridan

About

Books

Join the club