This volume is much more than an index.

Normally, and properly, an index is dependent upon the book to which it acts as a guide, and consequently it does not pretend to possess other than a subsidiary value. It is true that the pages of this volume do have as their first aim the object of thus serving as a guide, but they are designed to go considerably beyond such an immediate purpose and thus to have a positive, and to a certain extent independent, value of their own. In one sense, while the catalogue presented here may be regarded as an index to what is more fully given elsewhere, it seeks to be a substantive list, as complete as possible, of dramatic works produced in England from the Restoration to the end of the nineteenth century.

If this had been merely an index, nothing more would have been required, or expected, than short-title entries of plays, followed by volume and page references. The present list provides further information in three specific ways:

First, it indicates, in addition to the play-titles, the names of their authors (where known), together with the years of original production, publication or submission to the licensing authority. For immediate reference, therefore, the catalogue stands independent of the Handlists in the other volumes of this series, even although, of course, these contain more detailed information than could here be presented.