Bibliography
Gillette wrote 13 original plays, 7 adaptations and some collaborations, encompassing farce, melodrama and novel adaption. Two pieces based on the Civil War remain his greatest works: Held by the Enemy (1886) and Secret Service (1896). Both were successful with both the public and the critics, and Secret Service remains the only one of his plays available today on commercial VHS and DVD from a 1977 Broadway Theater Archive production starring John Lithgow and Meryl Streep.
His own bibliography follows:
- Bullywingle the Beloved (performed in Hartford, Connecticut, October 3, 1872, again in March 1873)
- The Twins of Siam (July 1879; never produced)
- The Professor (Summer 1879 tryout in Columbus, Ohio)
- Esmeralda (adapted from short story by Frances Hodgson Burnett, October 29, 1881, Madison Square Theatre, New York; published by the Madison Square Theatre in 1881)
- Digby’s Secretary (adapted from Gustave Von Moser's Der Bibliothekar, September 29, 1884, New York Comedy Theatre, New York).
- The Private Secretary (adapted from Gustave Von Moser's
- Der Bibliothekar, February 9, 1885, Madison Square Theatre, New York)
- Held by the Enemy (February 22, 1886, Criterion Theatre, Brooklyn, New York; published by Samuel French Ltd. in 1898)
- She (Dramatization of novel by Rider Haggard, November 29, 1887, Niblo's Garden, New York)
- A Legal Wreck (August 14, 1888, Madison Square Theatre, New York; published by the Rockwood Publishing Company in 1890)
- A Legal Wreck (Novelization, Rockwood Pub. Co., 1888)
- A Confederate Casualty (1888; never produced)
- Robert Elsmere (Partial dramatization of novel by Mary Augusta Ward; unable to obtain Mrs. Ward's permission, Gillette discontinued work on the project, and it was dramatized by other playwrights and produced without his participation)
- "Mr. William Gillette Surveys the Field", Harper's Weekly, Vol. XXXIII, No. 1676, February 2, 1889, Supplement, pgs. 98–99
- All the Comforts of Home (adapted from Carl Lauf's Ein Toller Einfall, March 3, 1890, Boston Museum, Boston, Massachusetts; published by H. Roorbach in 1897)
- Maid of All Work (1890; never produced)
- Mr. Wilkinson's Widows (adapted from Alexandre Bisson's Feu Toupinel, March 23, 1891, National Theatre, Washington, D.C.)
- Settled Out of Court (adapted from Alexandre Bisson's La Famille Pont-Biquet, August 8, 1892, Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York)
- The War of the American Revolution (January 1893, "nine scenes with historical commentary, written for the ‘Barnum & Baily people’, for a libretto to use with their ‘Vast Episodic Drama of the Revolution")
- Ninety Days (February 6, 1893, Broadway Theatre, New York)
- Too Much Johnson (adapted from Maurice Ordonneau's La Plantation Thomassin, November 26, 1894, Standard Theatre, New York; published in 1912)
- Secret Service (May 13, 1895, Broad Street Theatre, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; published in 1898; published by Samuel French Ltd. in 1898)
- "The Tale of My First Success," New York Dramatic Mirror, The Christmas Number 1886, December 26, 1896, pg. 30
- Because She Loved Him So (October 28, 1898, Hyperion Theatre, New Haven, Connecticut)
- Sherlock Holmes (with Arthur Conan Doyle, October 23, 1899, Star Theatre, Buffalo, New York; published by Samuel French, Ltd., in 1922, by Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., in 1935, and by Doubleday in 1976 and 1977)
- "The House-Boat in America," The Outlook Magazine, Vol. 65, No. 5, June 2, 1900
- The Frightful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes (March 24, 1905, Joseph Jefferson Holland Benefit, Metropolitan Opera House; later retitled The Harrowing Predicament of Sherlock Holmes and finally The Painful Predicament of Sherlock Holmes, published by Ben Abramson of The Argus Book Shop in Chicago in 1955)
- Clarice (September 4, 1905, Liverpool, England)
- Ticey, or That Little Affair of Boyd’s (June 15, 1908, originally retitled A Private Theatrical, then retitled A Maid-of-All Work, later retitled That Little Affair of Boyd’s, Columbia Theatre, Washington, D.C.)
- Samson (adapted from Henri Bernstein's Samson, October 19, 1908, Criterion Theatre, New York)
- The Red Owl, originally titled The Robber (One-Act Play, August 9, 1909, London Coliseum; published in One-Act Plays for Stage and Study, Second Series, Samuel French, Ltd., 1925, pgs 47–80)
- Among Thieves (One-Act Play, September 6, 1909, Palace Theatre, London; published in One-Act Plays for Stage and Study, Second Series, Samuel French, Ltd., 1925, pgs. 246–267)
- Electricity (September 26, 1910, Park Theatre, Boston, Massachusetts; published by Samuel French Ltd. in 1924)
- Theatrical managers exposed; A few words from Mr. William Gillette at the annual dinner of the Theatrical Managers' Association of Greater New York, at the Knickerbocker Hotel, January 10, 1910 (New York, 1910).
- Secret Service: Being the Happenings of a Night in Richmond in the Spring of 1865 (Novelization, Dodd, Mead and Company, New York, and Kessinger Publishing in the United Kingdom, 1912)
- Butterfly on the Wheel (1914; never produced)
- Diplomacy (adapted from Victorien Sardou’s Dora, October 20, 1914, Empire Theatre, New York)
- William Hooker Gillette: The Illusion of the First Time in Acting (The Dramatic Museum of Columbia University in Papers on Acting, Second Series, Number 1, 1915)
- "When a Play Is Not a Play", Vanity Fair, Vol. 5, Nos. 5–7 – vol. 6, Nos. 2–4, January–June 1916, pg. 53
- Introduction to How to Write a Play, edited by Miles Dudley, Papers on Playmaking II (Dramatic Museum of Columbia University, 1916), pgs. 1–8
- How Well George Does It (1919, never produced; published by Samuel French Ltd. in 1936)
- "America's Great Opportunity", The World War: Utterances Concerning Its Issues and Conduct by Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Printed for It's Archives and For Free
- The Dream Maker (November 21, 1921, Empire Theatre, New York)
- Sherlock Holmes, A Play (Samuel French, Ltd., 1922).
- Winnie and the Wolves (dramatized from Bertram Atkey's stories in the Saturday Evening Post, May 14, 1923, Lyric Theatre, Philadelphia, PA)
- The Astounding Crime on Torrington Road (Harper & Brothers, 1927)
- The Crown Prince of the Incas (1932–36; never completed)
- Sherlock Holmes, A Play (Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1935); Introduction by Vincent Starrett; Preface by William Gillette; Reminiscent notes and drawings by Frederic Dorr Steele
- Secret Service: Being the Happenings of a Night in Richmond in the Spring of 1865, Novelization with Cyrus Townsend Brady (Grosset & Dunlap in New York, 1936)
- Sherlock Holmes a Play: Wherein is Set Forth the Strange Case of Miss Alice Faulkner (Helan Halbach, Publisher, Santa Barbara, California, 1974), reprint of the 1935 edition; Introduction by Vincent Starrett; Preface by William Gillette; Reminiscent notes and drawings by Frederic Dorr Steele
- Sherlock Holmes: A Play (Doubleday & Company, 1976; hardcover).
- Sherlock Holmes: A Play (Samuel French, 1976; softcover)
- Sherlock Holmes: A Play (Doubleday & Company, 1977; hardcover)
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