The article deals with the status and use of prompt books in the Western literary theatre of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It focuses on the German-language tradition and the materials of the Hamburg-based collection Theater-Bibliothek. Prompt books at that time contained the literary basis of a theatrical performance, which, however, had to be constantly adapted to the actual conditions of the theatre. Whenever a prompt book was used, it was revised accordingly, so that each of these written artefacts also displays its own material performance. The article presents the manuscript practices employed in this process and the theatrical contexts in which these written artefacts were used. This is then further illustrated by the example of two prompt books from the nineteenth century.