Adaptation, Originality and Law: Dion Boucicault and Charles Reade

This article explores the legal environment in which nineteenth-century playwrights adapted from French plays and dramatised novels. It suggests that writers and managers tested legislation and created important case-law on adaptation; this was not only expensive but required significant legal knowledge. The essay pays particular attention to Charles Reade and Dion Boucicault, and suggests some ways in which the law relating to adaptation from the French may have affected the practice of adaptation, both from French dramas and from English novels.