John McCormick, theater historian and founder of the Drama Department of Trinity College Dublin, has been a practicing puppeteer since the 1950s. His books include studies of nineteenth- and twentieth-century French and British theater, popular puppetry in nineteenth-century Europe, and the Victorian marionette theater. Alfonso Cipolla, lecturer at the University of Turin and theater critic, has published extensively on puppet theatre. Alessandro Napoli, a teacher and author of a major study of the Catanian puppet theatre, belongs to a puppet family.

• Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments     Introduction      1. To the End of the Eighteenth Century      2. The Golden Age: Glove-Puppets      3. The Golden Age: Marionettes and Pupi      4. The Commedia dell’Arte and the Puppet Stage      5. Saints, Paladins and Bandits      6. The Creation of New Repertoires      Between pages 154 and 155 are 16 color plates containing 28 photographs7. Music and Spectacle      8. The Twentieth Century      9. Two Centuries of the Lupi Company of Turin (Alfonso Cipolla)      10. The Fratelli Napoli Puppet Company: The Catanian Opira from1921 Until Today (Alessandro Napoli)      Appendix: Diagrams      Glossary      Chapter Notes      Bibliography      Index