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Twice Killed: A Farce in One Act cover

Twice Killed: A Farce in One Act

Chapter 4: Transcriber’s Note
By John Oxenford
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HumourPlays/Films/Dramas

About This Book

A brisk one-act farce stages a series of comic misunderstandings and romantic scheming set largely by a riverside. A would-be lover resorts to elaborate disguises, false names, and bold stratagems while an accomplice manages a conspicuous hamper intended as a gift, producing mistaken identities, slapstick mishaps, and encounters with authorities. Rapid entrances, confusions over letters and lodging, and playful social satire drive the action to a tidy, humorous reconciliation. The piece relies on fast-paced dialogue, physical comedy, and conventional farcical devices to produce lighthearted entertainment.

Transcriber’s Note

This transcription is based on images digitized by Google from a copy made available by the Ohio State University and posted by the HathiTrust at:

catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/ 100593073

Because a few page scans had text cut off next to the margin, this transcription has been compared with the text posted by the Victorian Plays Project at:

victorian. nuigalway.ie

In general, this transcription attempts to retain the punctuation and spelling of the source text. Variant spellings have been retained, including “calender,” “terrestial,” “accomodation,” and “dosing” (for “dozing”), as have inconsistent spellings such as “lattitude” and “latitude.” Obvious errors have been corrected. The use of “its” and “it’s” has been made consistent.

The following changes were noted:

  • Frontispiece: The punctuation of the caption text has been made consistent with the script text.
  • p. 3: though it’s utility exceeds it’s beauty—Changed “it’s” to “its” in both cases.
  • p. 5: its very unkind of you—Changed “its” to “it’s”.
  • p. 6: “X plus Y. equal to—”—Deleted the period after “Y”.
  • p. 8: [MEN do so and exeunt., L. H.—Deleted the period after “exeunt”.
  • p. 13: FANNY. (screams,) Oh!—Changed the comma after “screams” to a period.
  • p. 14: I was rowing past a quarter of ah hour ago.—Changed “ah” to “an”.
  • p. 17: Mr. Feargus Fable, my old friend’s son, will be here in a minute—Changed “Feargus” to “Fergus” for consistency.
  • p. 17: what is the lattitude of Petersburgh.—Changed the period after “Petersburgh” to a question mark.
  • p. 20: Careless slut, what did you drop the tray for:—Changed the colon after “for” to a question mark.
  • p. 21: always happy to see you, you know—Inserted a period after “you know”.
  • p. 21: I must sit up rather rate, to finish a job—Changed “rate” to “late”.
  • p. 24: TOM., FAN., MRS. F., EUC., JULIA., RECK., HOLD., FAB.—Deleted the period after “JULIA”.