Each of the essays assembled here deals with an aspect of early twentieth-century music-theatre (loosely defined) and all of them to an extent involve the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. However, seven of the eight were conceived and their first versions written as pieces to stand alone; so in bringing them together I make no claim to have produced either a monograph with a single developing argument or a grand comprehensive survey. In fact, should the reader so wish, the essays can be read as a simple gathering of one-offs. But since (as I suggest in the Introduction below) there are a number of issues, preoccupations, endeavours, institutions and locations that recur through them as a group, they may be more rewarding to read as a sequence.

I have many people to thank warmly for kindnesses, formal permissions or both in connection with what follows. Each essay has a headnote which includes grateful acknowledgement of folk who have been helpful specifically in connection with that essay. There are some friends, however, whose kindness has spread over several or in some cases most of the essays; so I would like to offer especial thanks here to Michael Burden, Sarah Carpenter, Owen Dudley Edwards, Kirsty Nichol Findlay and Olga Taxidou. Warm thanks too to Patrick Carnegy, James Martin and Randall Stevenson for their encouragement, to Hugh Cobbe for allowing me access to Vaughan Williams's letters while his edition of them was in progress, and also—for their helpfulness, resourcefulness and civility—to the staffs of the National Library of Scotland (Reading Rooms, Special Collections and Reprographic Services), the Shakespeare Centre Library at Stratford-upon-Avon, the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library at Cecil Sharp House and the Rare Books and Music Collections of the British Library—especially to Nicolas Bell at the last of these.