Such was the extent of Bunce’s drama writing.  His life was not cast in the dramatic field, but rather in the publishing world.  The plays were done in his early manhood.  But he was pledged in interest to the theatre, and there are many significant criticisms and descriptions in print which convey an excellent impression of his attitude toward plays, players, and acting.

Bunce was a self-made man, with an excellent grasp of literature, which served him well in his various literary ventures.  His mind was cast in channels of originality, and the history of book publishing in New York must needs consider the numerous suggestions, which, as literary adviser at different times for the houses of Harper and Appleton, he saw to successful fruition.  In 1872, he became Editor of Appleton’s Journal, and it is to the files of this magazine we must turn to extract his frank reaction to the theatre of his day.  He wrote novels, stories, essays, editorials, everything to win him the name of journalist; once he had a publishing house of his own, doing business under the firm name of Bunce & Co.  He was always cordial toward every move to further the literary interest of the country, and was among the first to welcome the founding of the Authors Club.  It may be that his “Love in ’76” was a by-product of a book written by him, in 1852, and called “Romance of the Revolution.”

Bunce wrote well on theatrical matters; he is much more vivid and human than many a better-known critic.  Here, for instance, is an impression of the old Park Theatre, New York, in 1846.

“That was the time,” he writes in “The Editor’s Table” of Appleton’s Journal for October, 1880, “when the theatre had a pit, where critics and wiseacres were wont to assemble and utter oracular things about the plays and the performers.  The actors were in those days afraid of the Pit, especially at the Park, of the fourth bench from the orchestra, where the magnates of the pen sat watchful, and where old Nestors of the drama delivered their verdicts in terms that no one dared to gainsay.  The Pit was entered by cellar steps, and through a half-lighted, subterranean passage.  Decorative art, as we see it now in the full bloom of the Madison Square auditorium and Mr. Daly’s lobby, had not even given a hint of its coming.”

In The Galaxy for February, 1868, Bunce ventures to survey “Some of Our Actors” from the standpoint of deploring the pre-Raphaelite realism of the modern school.  He scored the attempted “truth” and “fidelity” of Matilda Heron, and, in considering Maggie Mitchell’s Fanchon, he bespoke the cause of ideality, as necessary in Fanchon as in Juliet. “Modern comedy acting,” he declares, “is usually a bright, brisk touch-and-go affair, suited to modern plays; but to the mellow and artistic style of a former generation, it is as the light claret wines, now so much in use, to crusty old port.”