COMPLETE TITLE: An Essay on Acting: In which will be Consider'd The Mimical Behaviour of a Certain Fashionable Faulty Actor, and the Laudableness of such Unmannerly, as well as Inhumane Proceedings. To which will be Added, A Short Criticism on his Acting Macbeth.

Published anonymously in 1744, the Essay on Acting was the result of an effort by Garrick to prevent possible negative criticism of his interpretation of Macbeth, a role he had acted in for the first time on January 7, 1744, at the Drury Lane. The Essay, in which the observations on acting are accompanied by Garrick's criticism of his own acting technique, reveal a careful study of the character to be acted, of its psychology, and a profound knowledge of how certain effects can be obtained by using the language of the body and of gestures.

TRANSLATIONS:
Italian: Un saggio sulla recitazione: dove sarà esaminato il comportamento di un certo fallace attore alla moda, e la lodabilità di tale rozza e disumana condotta. A cui seguirà una breve critica della sua interpretazione di Macbeth, in Maria Chiara Barbieri, La pagina and la scena. L'attore inglese nella trattatistica del '700, Firenze, Le Lettere, 2006, pp. 162-172 (see).