Tracy Davis's monumental study of the economics of British theatre (and allied entertainment) in the nineteenth century is breathtaking in its scope, incessantly informative, frequently eye-opening, repeatedly assumption-shattering, and astonishingly well-researched. It is arguably one of the most important contributions to scholarship in Victorian theatre for at least a decade. It is also, for the first 150 of its 362 pages of text, difficult to read and almost impossible to digest.