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The Discovery (Frances Sheridan Play)
''The Discovery'' is a comedy by Frances Sheridan. The play premiered on 5 February, 1763, at the Drury Lane Theatre, London. The actors being David Garrick, Frances' husband Thomas Sheridan, William O'Brien, Charles Holland, Mrs. Hannah Pritchard, Mary Ann Yates, and Jane Pope. Garrick agreed that Thomas Sheridan should play the lead role and be paid with two night's profits. Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. He wrote nearly 50 books, both novels and non-fiction works, as well as wide-ranging essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the prominent Huxley ... controversially rewrote the play and provided a new ending, for a Chatto and Windus edition in 1924.The Plays of Frances Sheridan ed. Robert Goode Hogan, Jerry C. Beasley 0874132436 1984 Page 33 "More recently, the revision of The Discovery by Aldous Huxley, who mangled Mrs. Sheridan's comedy by rewriting its sentimental passages and providing ...
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Frances Sheridan
Frances Sheridan (''née'' Chamberlaine) (1724 – 26 September 1766) was an Anglo-Irish novelist and playwright. Life Frances Chamberlaine was born in Dublin, Ireland. Her father, Dr. Phillip Chamberlaine, was an Anglican minister. In 1747 she married Thomas Sheridan, who was then an actor and theatre director, and at the same time she began work on her first novel, ''Eugenia and Adelaide''. The couple moved to London permanently in 1758 for business reasons (after an earlier sortie to London in 1754). In London Frances was introduced to Samuel Richardson, who encouraged her in her writing. Her most successful novel, ''Memoirs of Miss Sidney Bidulph'' (1761), in diary format, was influenced by Samuel Richardson's ''Pamela''. She then turned to drama, and two of her plays were produced at London's Drury Lane theatre by David Garrick's company in the 1760s. Frances Sheridan was the mother of the famous playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and her son's early successful plays w ...
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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 ...
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David Garrick
David Garrick (19 February 1717 – 20 January 1779) was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of European theatrical practice throughout the 18th century, and was a pupil and friend of Samuel Johnson. He appeared in a number of amateur theatricals, and with his appearance in the title role of Shakespeare's '' Richard III'', audiences and managers began to take notice. Impressed by his portrayals of Richard III and a number of other roles, Charles Fleetwood engaged Garrick for a season at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in the West End. He remained with the Drury Lane company for the next five years and purchased a share of the theatre with James Lacy. This purchase inaugurated 29 years of Garrick's management of the Drury Lane, during which time it rose to prominence as one of the leading theatres in Europe. At his death, three years after his retirement from Drury Lane and the stage, he was given a lavish public funeral ...
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Thomas Sheridan (actor)
Thomas Sheridan (1719 – 14 August 1788) was an Irish stage actor, an educator, and a major proponent of the elocution movement. He received his M.A. in 1743 from Trinity College in Dublin, and was the godson of Jonathan Swift. He also published a "respelled" dictionary of the English language (1780). He was married (1747) to Frances Chamberlaine. His son was the better known Richard Brinsley Sheridan, while his daughters were also writers - Alicia, a playwright, and Betsy Sheridan a diarist. His work is very noticeable in the writings of Hugh Blair. Life Thomas Sheridan was the third son of Dr Thomas Sheridan, an Anglican divine, noted for his close friendship with Jonathan Swift, and his wife Elizabeth McFadden His parents' marriage was notoriously unhappy, and they lived apart much of the time. Thomas attended Westminster School in 1732–1733 but, because of his father's financial problems, he had to finish his initial education in Dublin. In 1739, he earned his BA from ...
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William O'Brien (actor)
William O'Brien (c.1740-1815) was an Irish actor and playwright. Career William O'Brien was probably born in County Clare in about 1740 to a family which claimed a distant connection to the Viscounts Clare. His father was a fencing master in Dublin David Garrick brought O'Brien over to London from Dublin in 1758 to join his actor's company at Drury Lane. O'Brien was successful in a number of roles, particularly Shakespeare and contemporary comedies. He eloped with Lady Susannah "Susan" Fox-Strangways, eldest daughter of Stephen Fox, the first Earl of Ilchester, whom he had met when they both performed in amateur theatricals at Holland House. Their marriage, which took place on 7 April 1764 at St. Paul's Church, Covent Gardens, was disapproved of by Lady Susan's family. Following the marriage, O'Brien retired from the stage. The couple were forced for a time to travel to North America, because of the social scandal caused by their elopement. They set sail for New York in Septemb ...
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Charles Holland (actor)
Charles Holland (12 March 1733 – 7 December 1769) was an English actor, born in Chiswick, the son of a baker. Life Holland made his first appearance on the stage in the title role of Oroonoko at Drury Lane in 1755, John Palmer, Richard Yates and Susanna Cibber being in the cast. He played under David Garrick, and was the original Florizel in the latter's adaptation of Shakespeare's ''The Winter's Tale''. Holland died from smallpox at the age of 36. He was engaged to the actress Jane Pope, but she broke off the engagement when she found him boating at Richmond with the actress Sophia Baddeley. He was known for having affairs; the one with Mrs K. Earle led her husband, William Earle, to prosecute Holland successfully. Garrick thought highly of him, and wrote a eulogistic epitaph for his monument in St Nicholas Church, Chiswick. His tomb was sculpted by William Tyler RA.Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660-1851 by Rupert Gunnis p.404 His nephew, Charles Holland (1768 ...
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Hannah Pritchard
Hannah Pritchard (née Vaughan, 1711–1768) was an English actress who regularly played opposite David Garrick. She performed many significant Shakespearean roles and created on stage many important female roles by contemporary playwrights. Life She was born in 1711, and married in early life a poor actor named Pritchard. As Mrs. Pritchard she acted in 1733, at Fielding and Hippisley's booth, ''Bartholomew Fair'', the part of Loveit in an opera called ''A Cure for Covetousness, or the Cheats of Scapin''. She sang with great effect "Sweet, if you love me, smiling, turn". A duet between her and an actor called Salway was very popular, and she was berhymed by a writer in the ''Daily Post'', who spoke of this as her first essay, and predicted for her "a transportation to a brighter stage". This was soon accomplished, since she appeared at the Haymarket Theatre on 26 Sept. 1733 as Nell in ''The Devil to Pay'' of Coffey. She was one of the company known as the "Comedians of his Majest ...
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Mary Ann Yates
Mary Ann Yates (1728–1787) was an English tragic actress. The daughter of William Graham, a ship's steward and his wife, Mary, she married Richard Yates (c. 1706-1796), a well-known comedian of the time. In 1754, aged 25, she appeared at Drury Lane as Marcia in Samuel Crisp's ''Virginia''. David Garrick played the part of Virginius. Yates was gradually entrusted with all the leading parts and succeeded the then famous actress Mrs Cibber as the leading tragedienne of the English stage. She was in turn succeeded and eclipsed by the famous Sarah Siddons. There were benefit performances for Yates in 1797 at The Haymarket which included an appearance by Harriett Litchfield.K. A. Crouch, ‘Litchfield , Harriett (1777–1854)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 200accessed 1 Feb 2015/ref> Selected roles * Marcia in ''Virginia'' by Samuel Crisp (1754) * Sandane in ''Agis'' by John Home (1758) * Mandane in '' The Orphan of ...
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Jane Pope
Jane Pope (1744 – 30 July 1818) was an English actress. Life Pope was the daughter William and Susanna Pope. Her father was a London theatrical wig-maker for the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. (There has been confusion over her date of birth with different authorities giving 1742 and 1744, but in a letter from Jane Pope of 1808 she states her age as 64.) Pope had three brothers and she spent her life living with her sister who was named after their mother. Neither of them married. As a child Pope and her brother were recruited as child extras for a Lilliputian production for Garrick in 1756. From this she speedily developed into soubrette roles. Pope had a dispute with Garrick over whether she was worth eight or ten pounds a week. She left his company but returned when he offered to reemploy her and Pope agreed to eight pounds. She was Mrs Candour in ''The School for Scandal'' at its first presentation (1777). There is a painting of Jane Pope by James Roberts in the role of Mrs P ...
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Aldous Huxley
Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. He wrote nearly 50 books, both novels and non-fiction works, as well as wide-ranging essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the prominent Huxley family, he graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with an undergraduate degree in English literature. Early in his career, he published short stories and poetry and edited the literary magazine ''Oxford Poetry'', before going on to publish travel writing, satire, and screenplays. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times, and was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1962. Huxley was a pacifist. He grew interested in philosophical mysticism, as well as universalism, addre ...
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Chatto And Windus
Chatto & Windus is an imprint of Penguin Random House that was formerly an independent book publishing company founded in London in 1855 by John Camden Hotten. Following Hotten's death, the firm would reorganize under the names of his business partner Andrew Chatto and poet William Edward Windus. The company was purchased by Random House in 1987 and is now a sub-imprint of Vintage Books within the Penguin UK division. History The firm developed out of the publishing business of John Camden Hotten, founded in 1855. After his death in 1873, it was sold to Hotten's junior partner Andrew Chatto (1841–1913), who took on the poet William Edward Windus (1827-1910), son of the patron of J. M. W. Turner, Benjamin Godfrey Windus (1790-1867), as partner. Chatto & Windus published Mark Twain, W. S. Gilbert, Wilkie Collins, H. G. Wells, Wyndham Lewis, Richard Aldington, Frederick Rolfe (as Fr. Rolfe), Aldous Huxley, Samuel Beckett, the "unfinished" novel ''Weir of Hermiston'' (1896) by R ...
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1763 Plays
Events January–March * January 27 – The seat of colonial administration in the Viceroyalty of Brazil is moved from Salvador to Rio de Janeiro. * February 1 – The Royal Colony of North Carolina officially creates Mecklenburg County from the western portion of Anson County. The county is named for Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who married George III of the United Kingdom in 1761. * February 10 – Seven Years' War – French and Indian War: The Treaty of Paris ends the war, and France cedes Canada (New France) to Great Britain. * February 15 – The Treaty of Hubertusburg puts an end to the Seven Years' War between Prussia and Austria, and their allies France and Russia. * February 23 – The Berbice Slave Uprising starts in the former Dutch colony of Berbice. * March 1 – Charles Townshend becomes President of the Board of Trade in the British government. April–June * April 6 – The Théâtre du Palais-Royal, ...
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