EN
In this considerations the vision of the theatrical world pictured by the XIX century theatrical novel was reduced to only one aspect, which is acting. This was examined by the prism of category of beauty. We were interested in standards of acting interpreted as creative or portraying artistry, the descriptions of ,,beauty” of female and male acting or finally problem of acting under-stood as not only vocation (mission, beauty) but also a curse for people who work as actors. Con-sidering theatrical novel from this point of view and taking into account the changes of presenting acting and the picture of an actor by particular authors, we can observe the changes of genre within theatrical novel. The evolution taking place at the end of XIX century will soon bring the significant number of typical, popular artistic and theatrical-environmental novels.