Dundreary
Lord Dundreary is a character of the 1858 British play ''Our American Cousin'' by Tom Taylor. He is a good-natured, brainless aristocrat. The role was created on stage by Edward Askew Sothern. The most famous scene involved Dundreary reading a letter from his even sillier brother. Sothern expanded the scene considerably in performance. A number of spin-off works were also created, including a play about the brother. His name gave rise to two eponyms rarely heard today - “Dundrearies” and "Dundrearyisms". The former referred to a particular style of facial hair taking the form of exaggeratedly bushy sideburns, also called “dundreary whiskers” (or “Piccadilly weepers” in England) which were popular between 1840 and 1870. The latter eponym was used to refer to expanded malapropisms in the form of twisted and nonsensical aphorisms in the style of Lord Dundreary (''e.g.'', "birds of a feather gather no moss"). These enjoyed a brief vogue. Charles Kingsley Charles Kingsl ...
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Our American Cousin
''Our American Cousin'' is a three-act play by English playwright Tom Taylor. It is a farce featuring awkward, boorish American Asa Trenchard, who is introduced to his aristocratic English relatives when he goes to England to claim the family estate. The play premiered with great success at Laura Keene's Theatre in New York City in 1858, with Keene in the cast, the title character played by Joseph Jefferson, and Edward Askew Sothern playing Lord Dundreary. The play's long-running London production in 1861 was also successful. The play achieved great renown during its first few years and remained very popular throughout the second half of the 19th century. It is best known in modern times as the play that U.S. President Abraham Lincoln was attending in Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., when he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth at the end of the American Civil War. Theatrical acclaim and "Lord Dundreary" Among ''Our American Cousins cast was British actor Edward Askew ...
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