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1775 In Literature
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1775. Events *January 17 – Richard Brinsley Sheridan's first play, the comedy of manners ''The Rivals'', is premièred at the Covent Garden Theatre in London, then extensively rewritten. It reopens on January 28 to acclaim. The play introduces the character of Mrs. Malaprop. *February 23 – Pierre Beaumarchais' comedy ''Le Barbier de Séville'' is premièred by the Comédie-Française at the Tuileries Palace in Paris. Rewritten it reopens on February 26 to better success. It introduces the character of Figaro. *October 19 – Samuel Johnson, Henry Thrale and Hester Thrale, visiting Paris, watch King Louis XVI of France and Queen Marie Antoinette dining. *December 29 – The English actress Sarah Siddons makes her debut at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, Drury Lane Theatre in London as Portia (Merchant of Venice), Portia in ''The Merchant of Venice'' but is poorly received. New books Prose *Hester Ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
January 17
Events Pre-1600 * 38 BC – Octavian divorces his wife Scribonia and marries Livia Drusilla, ending the fragile peace between the Second Triumvirate and Sextus Pompey. * 1362 – Saint Marcellus' flood kills at least 25,000 people on the shores of the North Sea. * 1377 – Pope Gregory XI reaches Rome, after deciding to move the Papacy back to Rome from Avignon. * 1524 – Giovanni da Verrazzano sets sail westward from Madeira to find a sea route to the Pacific Ocean. * 1562 – France grants religious toleration to the Huguenots in the Edict of Saint-Germain. *1595 – During the French Wars of Religion, Henry IV of France declares war on Spain. 1601–1900 * 1608 – Emperor Susenyos I of Ethiopia surprises an Oromo army at Ebenat; his army reportedly kills 12,000 Oromo at the cost of 400 of his men. * 1648 – England's Long Parliament passes the "Vote of No Addresses", breaking off negotiations with King Charles I and thereby setting the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis XVI Of France
Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was executed by guillotine. He was the son of Louis, Dauphin of France, son and heir-apparent of King Louis XV, and Maria Josepha of Saxony. When his father died in 1765, he became the new Dauphin. Upon his grandfather's death on 10 May 1774, he became King of France and Navarre, reigning as such until 4 September 1791, when he received the title of King of the French, continuing to reign as such until the monarchy was abolished on 21 September 1792. The first part of his reign was marked by attempts to reform the French government in accordance with Enlightenment ideas. These included efforts to abolish serfdom, remove the ''taille'' (land tax) and the ''corvée'' (labour tax), and increase tolerance toward non-Catholics as well as abolis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicolas-Edme Rétif
Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne, born Nicolas-Edme R̩tif or Nicolas-Edme Restif (; 23 October 1734 Р3 February 1806), also known as R̩tif, was a French novelist. The term '' retifism'' for shoe fetishism was named after him (an early novel, entitled ''Fanchette's Foot'', follows a beautiful heroine and her pretty little foot, which, with her pretty face, gets her and her shoe/s into lots of trouble). The man was also reputed to have coined the term "pornographer" in the same-named book, ''The Pornographer.'' Biography Born the son of a farmer at Sacy (in present-day Yonne), R̩tif was educated by the Jansenists at Bic̻tre, and on the expulsion of the Jansenists was received by one of his brothers, who was a ''cur̩''. Owing to a scandal in which he was involved, he was apprenticed to a printer at Auxerre, and, having served his time, went to Paris. Here he worked as a journeyman printer, and in 1760 he married Anne or Agn̬s Leb̬gue, a relation of his former master at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Jackson Pratt
Samuel Jackson Pratt (25 December 1749 – 4 October 1814) was a prolific English poet, dramatist and novelist, writing under the pseudonym of "Courtney Melmoth" as well as under his own name. He authored around 40 publications between 1770 and 1810, some of which are still published today, and is probably best remembered as the author of ''Emma Corbett: or the Miseries of Civil War,'' (1780) and the poem ''Sympathy'' (1788). Although his reputation was tainted by scandal during his lifetime, he is today recognised as an early campaigner for animal welfare and the first English writer to treat the American Revolution as a legitimate subject for literature. Biography Early life Samuel Jackson Pratt was born "to a very respectable family" on 25 December 1749, in St Ives, Huntingdonshire. His father was a brewer,Dictionary of National Biography 1921–1922 Vols 1–20 who twice served as High Sheriff of Huntingdonshire. Pratt was educated at Felsted, in Essex and was later o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Johnstone
Charles Johnstone (–1800) was an Irish novelist. Prevented by deafness from practising at the Irish Bar, he went to India, where he was proprietor of a newspaper. He wrote one successful book, ''Chrysal, or the Adventures of a Guinea'', a somewhat sombre satire. Life Born at Carrigogunnell, County Limerick about 1719, he was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, but is not known to have taken a degree. He was called to the bar, but extreme deafness prevented his practice except as a chamber lawyer, where he did not succeed. He began to write as a living. In May 1782, Johnstone sailed for India, with a dangerous shipwreck on the voyage. He found employment in writing for the Bengal newspaper press, under the signature of "Oneiropolos". He became in time joint proprietor of a journal, and prospered. He died at Calcutta about 1800. Works Johnstone's major work, entitled ''Chrysal, or the Adventures of a Guinea'', and frequently reprinted, appeared in 4 vols., London, 1760–6 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne (24 November 1713 – 18 March 1768), was an Anglo-Irish novelist and Anglican cleric who wrote the novels ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'' and ''A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy'', published sermons and memoirs, and indulged in local politics. He grew up in a military family travelling mainly in Ireland but briefly in England. An uncle paid for Sterne to attend Hipperholme Grammar School in the West Riding of Yorkshire, as Sterne's father was ordered to Jamaica, where he died of malaria some years later. He attended Jesus College, Cambridge on a sizarship, gaining bachelor's and master's degrees. While Vicar of Sutton-on-the-Forest, Yorkshire, he married Elizabeth Lumley in 1741. His ecclesiastical satire ''A Political Romance'' infuriated the church and was burnt. With his new talent for writing, he published early volumes of his best-known novel, ''The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman''. Sterne travelled to Fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eliza Draper
Eliza Draper (5 April 1744 – 3 August 1778) is best known as Laurence Sterne's Eliza. She was his muse and is commemorated in his '' Sentimental Journey'' and '' Journal to Eliza''. She had literary talents that were developed under Sterne's influence, and she wrote many long and interesting letters from India, vividly describing the life and customs there. Early life Eliza was born Elizabeth Sclater at Anjengo, India, on 5 April 1744. She was the eldest daughter of May Sclater and his wife Judith Whitehill, daughter of Charles Whitehill. Her father was in the service of the East India Company. He died in 1746, and her mother probably by 1748. The three daughters then lived with their grandfather, Charles Whitehill, at Bombay. In 1754, the girls were sent to a boarding school in England, spending the holidays with their uncle and aunt, Thomas and Elizabeth Pickering. Eliza and her sisters returned to their grandfather in Bombay in 1757. Marriage Eliza was married at the age o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Combe
William Combe (25 March 174219 June 1823) was a British miscellaneous writer. His early life was that of an adventurer, his later was passed chiefly within the "rules" of the King's Bench Prison. He is chiefly remembered as the author of ''The Three Tours of Doctor Syntax'', a comic poem, illustrated by artist Thomas Rowlandson's color plates, that satirised William Gilpin. Combe also wrote a series of imaginary letters, supposed to have been written by the second, or "wicked" Lord Lyttelton. Of a similar kind were his letters between Swift and " Stella". He also wrote the letterpress for various illustrated books, and was a general hack. Early life Combe's father, Robert Combes, was a rich Bristol ironmonger who died in 1756; his mother, Susannah Hill (died 1748), was from a Quaker background. He was educated at Eton College, but was withdrawn from the school by William Alexander, his guardian, on his father's death; Alexander died in 1762. He inherited from both his fath ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hester Chapone
Hester Chapone ''née'' Mulso (27 October 1727, Twywell, Northamptonshire – 25 December 1801, Hadwell, Middlesex), was an English writer of conduct books for women. She became associated with the London Bluestockings. Life Hester, the daughter of Thomas Mulso (1695–1763), a gentleman farmer, and his wife (died 1747/1748), a daughter of Colonel Thomas, wrote a romance at the age of nine entitled "The Loves of Amoret and Melissa", which earned her mother's disapproval. She was educated more thoroughly than most girls in that period, learning French, Italian and Latin, and began writing regularly and corresponding with other writers at the age of 18. Her earliest published works were four brief pieces for Samuel Johnson's journal ''The Rambler'' in 1750. She was married in 1760 to the solicitor John Chapone (c. 1728–1761), the son of an earlier moral writer, Sarah Chapone (1699–1764), but she was soon widowed. Hester Chapone became associated with the learned ladies or B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Merchant Of Venice
''The Merchant of Venice'' is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. A merchant in Venice named Antonio defaults on a large loan provided by a Jewish moneylender, Shylock. Although classified as a comedy in the First Folio and sharing certain aspects with Shakespeare's other romantic comedies, the play is most remembered for its dramatic scenes, and it is best known for the character Shylock and his famous demand for a " pound of flesh" in retribution. The play contains two famous speeches, that of Shylock, "Hath not a Jew eyes?" on the subject of humanity, and that of Portia on " the quality of mercy". Debate exists on whether the play is anti-Semitic, with Shylock's insistence on his legal right to the pound of flesh being in opposition to Shylock's seemingly universal plea for the rights of all people suffering discrimination. Characters * Antonio – a prominent merchant of Venice in a melancholic mood. * Bassanio â ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portia (Merchant Of Venice)
Portia is a female protagonist of William Shakespeare's ''The Merchant of Venice''. A rich, beautiful, intelligent heiress of Belmont, she is bound by the lottery set forth in her father's will, which gives potential suitors the chance to choose among three caskets. If he chooses the right casket, he wins Portia's hand in marriage. If he chooses the incorrect casket, he must leave and never woo any other woman in marriage. She is shown to think little of various foreign noblemen of similar rank who are most likely to seek her hand in marriage and still less of two suitors who seem to attempt her father's assigned task. Instead she favours a young but impoverished Venetian noble, Bassanio, who is also a soldier and a scholar. Bassanio goes on to choose the right casket. Portia is also fond of wordplay and proverbs, frequently quoting and coining them, which was considered a sign of wisdom and sharp wit in Elizabethan era. Some suggest that the character of Portia was based on Q ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, commonly known as Drury Lane, is a West End theatre and Grade I listed building in Covent Garden, London, England. The building faces Catherine Street (earlier named Bridges or Brydges Street) and backs onto Drury Lane. The building is the most recent in a line of four theatres which were built at the same location, the earliest of which dated back to 1663, making it the oldest theatre site in London still in use. According to the author Peter Thomson, for its first two centuries, Drury Lane could "reasonably have claimed to be London's leading theatre". For most of that time, it was one of a handful of patent theatres, granted monopoly rights to the production of "legitimate" drama in London (meaning spoken plays, rather than opera, dance, concerts, or plays with music). The first theatre on the site was built at the behest of Thomas Killigrew in the early 1660s, when theatres were allowed to reopen during the English Restoration. Initially ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
