Abstract
<p> This book considers how two eighteenth-century writers—the actress George Anne Bellamy and the moral philosopher Adam Smith—explore moral judgment, ambition, virtue, and the theatre in their books. Bellamy’s <italic>Apology</italic> (1785) is usually read as a scandalous or theatrical memoir, and her career has been considered in relation to issues such as attitudes toward pregnancy and motherhood. Yet her memoir is also a sophisticated book applying Bellamy’s understanding of the actor-spectator dynamic in relation to the theatre, exchange, and moral judgment, and Smith’s <italic>Theory of Moral Sentiments</italic> illuminates how. Bellamy’s account of the Alston Street Theatre in Grahamstown also adds to our understanding of Smith’s arguments about the theatre in <italic>The Wealth of Nations</italic> (1776), where his position seems to differ from that he took in opposing the construction of the theatre in 1762. Smith owned a copy of Bellamy’s <italic>Apology</italic> , where a number of dogeared pages suggest interest in her account of that theatre and other matters. Its publication shortly before Smith began to write his publisher about a sixth edition of <italic>The Theory of Moral Sentiments</italic> (1790) renders it a relevant context. This book adds Bellamy’s <italic>Apology</italic> to the list of inspirations for Smith’s final revisions, particularly in relation to praiseworthiness, ambition, the character of virtue, veracity, and what Smith called “a practical system of Morality.” </p>