From “Stage-Land: Curious Habits and Customs of its Inhabitants” described by Jerome K Jerome with drawings by J Bernard Partridge. Published by Chatto & Windus, London, in 1890. The book is an entertaining account of the types of characters to be found upon the theatre stage and this shifty-looking individual is the ‘stage villain’. Of course, you would know that from his immaculate appearance and the fact that he is always smoking a cigarette. Things which would never happen in real life, naturally. And he does have a distressing tendency to get knocked down by the hero fairly regularly. Sad, really.
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An illustration of a crocodile head
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Viet Thanh Nguyen Photo courtesy of Anna Min
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