Abstract
Real or imaginary, babies provided the Victorian public with a favourite spectacle, featuring in sensational, domestic, and farcical plays, often at the centre of the plot. Impossible to train, their deployment was not without hazard. Under scrutiny here are the range of their manifestations and the effects they could generate. Warren's baby farce Nita's First (1884) emerges as a precursor to The Importance of Being Earnest; Morton's nameless Children in the Wood (1793) swell into music-hall stars by the time of the Drury Lane pantomime of 1888. The departure of real babies from the stage was dictated by the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act of 1889—legislation which had in turn been influenced by the rhetoric of moral reformers which constructed all theatre children as vulnerable, exploited ‘babies’ in need of protection, not applause. The author, Anne Varty, is a Senior Lecturer in the English Department at Royal Holloway, University of London.
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