Title:  The Belles of Canterbury A Chaucer Tale Out of School

Author:  Anna Bird Stewart

Release Date:  February 9, 2005 [EBook #15007]

Language:  English

Character set encoding:  ASCII

*** Start of this project gutenberg EBOOK the Belles of Canterbury ***

Produced by Kentuckiana Digital Library, David Garcia and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team.

THE BELLES OF CANTERBURY

A CHAUCER TALE OUT OF SCHOOL

=A Play In One Act for Eleven Girls=

BY ANNA BIRD STEWART, A.M.

DEDICATED TO MISS DOROTHY CONREY

1912

* * * * *

=Price 25 cents=

New York London Samuel French Samuel French, Ltd.  Publisher 26 Southampton Street 28-30 West 38th Street Strand

=The Belles of Canterbury=

PERSONS IN THE PLAY.

Freshman  }
sophomore }
Junior    }  Pupils at a girls’ school
Senior    }

CHARACTERS FROM THE CANTERBURY TALES.

Wife of Bath     From the Prologue
prioress            "   "     "
First nun           "   "     "
Second nun          "   "     "
Emily            From the Knight’s Tale
hippolyta           "   "     "       "
Griselda            "   "  Clerk’s  "

COSTUMES.

The simplicity of the costuming as well as of the stage setting makes the play an easy one for amateurs to produce.

The dress of the four school girls should be as modern as possible.  Their hair should be elaborately arranged.

Hippolyta should wear the dress of an Amazon, armor if possible, or a short skirt, sandals laced high with crossed strings, waist to match the skirt, a crown, and a shield on the left arm.  The shield can he made by gilding or covering a barrel-head with silver paper.

Emily wears a long gown of pale dull green cheese cloth, falling straight from the shoulders and girded in at the waist by a curtain cord.  She must have fair hair which should be braided down her back.

Griselda should wear a similar costume of pale gray and lavender, with a tall headdress of wire covered with white gauze and tinsel.

The wife of Bath wears a short skirted costume of very bright colors, red stockings, very broad shoes, a straw hat with a broad brim and no trimming, if possible one of the sun hats worn by farmers.