ML Archives and Special Collections

Daniel Bandmann, An Actor’s Tour; or, Seventy Thousand Miles with Shakespeare. Boston: Cupples, Upham and Co., 1885. (SpColl-MT Coll: 910.4 B214a)

The 1905 New York Times obituary for Daniel Bandmann describes him as “a Shakespearean actor of note and one of the best-known residents of Montana”. In this 1885 work, Bandmann relates a tour around the world on which he performed Shakespeare’s plays in locations like New Zealand and India. After moving to the Missoula area Bandmann continued acting, putting on numerous local productions, as well becoming the owner of two ranches. Among other things, Bandmann is cited as the person who first introduced McIntosh apples to the state¹.

But An Actor’s Tour is also an example of one reason that digitized books usually aren’t a substitute for the physical object. Our copy includes a two-leaf program inserted between the endpapers and the frontispiece:

The program describes the performances of “Herr and Mrs. Bandmann” (Bandmann’s wife acted as well) at the Princess’s Theatre in London. In addition to being visually interesting and offering information about performances in which Bandmann took part, the program includes advertisements for such products as “Rimmel’s Aquadentine”, a tooth-whitener, and “Rimmel’s Fancy Crackers” (Eugene Rimmel, “Perfumer by Appointment to H.R.H. the Princess of Wales”, and an interesting figure himself, sponsored the program). A copy of the book is available online through Google Books, but it doesn’t contain the program where it appears in our copy.