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The Fatal Vision

play by Aaron Hill

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 27, 2026
Entity authorityQ104855199
Source-derived summary

The Fatal Vision is a 1716 tragedy by the British writer Aaron Hill. It is also known as The Fatal Vision: Or, the Fall of Siam.

It is set at the Chinese imperial court in an unspecified time, and features the Chinese Emperor, his wife and two sons plus a captive princess from Siam.

Hill funded the production using his own money. It ran for seven nights at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre.

References

Bibliography

Burling, William J. A Checklist of New Plays and Entertainments on the London Stage, 1700-1737. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 1992.

Gerrard, Christine. Aaron Hill: The Muses' Projector, 1685-1750. Oxford University Press, 2003.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “The Fatal Vision” as play by Aaron Hill. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Fatal, Vision and play.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1716, 1700, 1737, 1992—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Fatal, Vision and play providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “The Fatal Vision”, the useful work is to connect “play by Aaron Hill” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q104855199. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1716, 1700, 1737 and 1992.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Fatal Vision”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Fatal Vision primary sources, The Fatal Vision archive and Fatal research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Fatal Vision”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from The Fatal Vision” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.