Alfred Dampier adapted and staged Jess, H. Rider Haggard's imperial romance set during the first Anglo-Boer War (1880-81) as a sensation melodrama. The March 1888 premiere occurred less than two years after it had been first serialised by the Cornill Magazine (May 1886-April 1887) and barely a year after Smith Edler published the first novelised edition (March 1887).Ailsa McPhearson notes that the play, as with Dampier's later reworking, A Transvaal Heroine (1896), was criticised by the colonial press for turning Haggard's characters into melodramatic stereotypes. The public nevertheless responded favourably to both productions and they became popular successes (258).
1888: Gaiety Theatre, Sydney; 3-16, 19-22 March (world premiere)