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Woman's Wit (Knowles Play)
''Woman's Wit; or, Loves Disguises'' is an 1838 comedy play by the Irish writer James Sheridan Knowles. Nicoll p.339 It premiered at the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden on the 23 June 1838 with a cast that included James Warde as Lord Athunree, George Bartley as Sir William Sutton, William Macready as Walsingham, John Langford Pritchard as Felton, John Pritt Harley as Clever and Helena Faucit as Hero. Knowles dedicated the play to the writer Samuel Rogers Samuel Rogers (30 July 1763 – 18 December 1855) was an English poet, during his lifetime one of the most celebrated, although his fame has long since been eclipsed by his Romantic colleagues and friends Wordsworth, Coleridge and Byron. His .... References Bibliography * Burwick, Frederck Goslee, Nancy Moore & Hoeveler Diane Long . ''The Encyclopaedia of Romantic Literature''. John Wiley & Sons, 2012. * Nicoll, Allardyce. ''A History of Early Nineteenth Century Drama 1800-1850''. Cambridge University Press, 1930. 18 ...
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James Sheridan Knowles
James Sheridan Knowles (12 May 1784 – 30 November 1862) was an Irish dramatist and actor. Biography Knowles was born in Cork. His father was the lexicographer James Knowles (1759–1840), cousin of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. The family moved to London in 1793, and at the age of fourteen Knowles published a ballad entitled ''The Welsh Harper'', which, set to music, was very popular. His talents secured him the friendship of William Hazlitt, who introduced him to Charles Lamb and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He served for some time in the Wiltshire and afterwards in the Tower Hamlets militia, leaving the service to become a pupil of Dr Robert Willan (1757–1812). He obtained the degree of M.D., and was appointed vaccinator to the Jennerian Society. Although Dr Willan offered him a share in his practice, Knowles decided to give up medicine for the stage, making his first appearance as an actor probably at Bath, and played Hamlet at the Crow Theatre, Dublin. At Wexford he marrie ...
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Theatre Royal, Covent Garden
The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. The first theatre on the site, the Theatre Royal (1732), served primarily as a playhouse for the first hundred years of its history. In 1734, the first ballet was presented. A year later, the first season of operas, by George Frideric Handel, began. Many of his operas and oratorios were specifically written for Covent Garden and had their premieres there. The current building is the third theatre on the site, following disastrous fires in 1808 and 1856 to previous buildings. The façade, foyer, and auditorium date from 1858, but almost every other element of the present complex dates from an extensive reconstruction in the 1990s. The main auditorium seats 2,256 people, makin ...
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Comedy Play
Comedy is a genre of dramatic performance having a light or humorous tone that depicts amusing incidents and in which the characters ultimately triumph over adversity. For ancient Greeks and Romans, a comedy was a stage-play with a happy ending. In the Middle Ages, the term expanded to include narrative poems with happy endings and a lighter tone. In this sense Dante used the term in the title of his poem, the ''Divine Comedy'' (Italian: ''Divina Commedia''). The phenomena connected with laughter and that which provokes it have been carefully investigated by psychologists. The predominating characteristics are incongruity or contrast in the object, and shock or emotional seizure on the part of the subject. It has also been held that the feeling of superiority is an essential factor: thus Thomas Hobbes speaks of laughter as a "sudden glory." Modern investigators have paid much attention to the origin both of laughter and of smiling, as well as the development of the "play insti ...
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James Warde
James Prescott Warde (1792–1840) was an English actor. He came up as a provincial tragic actor, in the Garrick mould. The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' says he was "full of promise at the time of his first appearance in London", in 1818, but did not reach the top ranks of the profession. Early life Born James Prescott in the west of England in 1792, he was the son of J. Prescott. A cadet at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich in 1807, he became second lieutenant in the Royal Artillery in 1809. He served for three years in the Cape of Good Hope, then left the army in poor health in 1813, returning to England. He was later superseded for "absence without leave" on 1 April 1815. Prescott went onto the stage, adopting the further name of Warde. He was first seen in Liverpool, in the role of Lord Towneley in Colley Cibber's ''The Provoked Husband''. He spent time in touring companies in the north of England. Bath stage from 1813 Warde's first recorded appearance at Bath, wh ...
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George Bartley (comedian)
George Bartley (1782?–1858) was an English stage comedian. He was successful in playing comic old men and bluff uncles, and Falstaff became his favourite character. He had roles in many Shakespearean Comedies throughout his career spanning over half a century. Early life Bartley was born in Bath, Somerset presumably in or about 1782. His father was box-keeper at the Bath Theatre. While still a youth he acquired some stage experience, appearing in characters ordinarily assigned to women, such as the page in John Cartwright Cross's musical drama, ''The Purse''. After a period of odd jobs, Bartley appeared at Cheltenham in the summer of 1800 as Orlando in ''As You Like It''. He is said to have appeared again in Bath, and then joined a travelling company. In Guernsey he made his first marriage, his wife being a member of the company, named Stanton, by whom he was nursed through an illness. In London To the influence of Dorothea Jordan, who in 1802 saw him in Margate, Bartley ...
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William Macready
William Charles Macready (3 March 179327 April 1873) was an English actor. Life He was born in London the son of William Macready the elder, and actress Christina Ann Birch. Educated at Rugby School where he became headboy, and where now the theatre is named after him, it was his initial intention to go to University of Oxford, but in 1809 financial problems experienced by his father, the lessee of several provincial theatres, called him to share the responsibilities of theatrical management. On 7 June 1810, he made a successful first appearance as Romeo at Birmingham. Other Shakespearian parts followed, but a serious rupture between father and son resulted in the young man's departure for Bath in 1814. Here he remained for two years, with occasional professional visits to other provincial towns. On 16 September 1816, Macready made his first London appearance at Covent Garden as Orestes in ''The Distressed Mother'', a translation of Racine's ''Andromaque'' by Ambrose Philips. ...
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John Langford Pritchard
John Langford Pritchard (1799 – 5 August 1850) was an English actor, known as ‘Gentleman Pritchard’.Parker, Herschel (2011)''The Powell Papers: A Confidence Man Amok Among the Anglo-American Literati'' Northwestern University Press. P.339. Biography Pritchard was the son of a captain in the navy, was born, it is said, at sea, in 1799, and, adopting his father's profession, became a midshipman. After some practice as an amateur he joined a small company in Wales, and on 24 May 1820, as 'Pritchard from Cheltenham,' made his first appearance in Bath, playing Captain Absolute in the 'Rivals.' In August he played under Bunn, at the New Theatre, Birmingham, Lord Trinket, Sir Benjamin Backbite, and other parts, reappearing in Bath on 30 October as Irwin in Mrs. Inchbald's 'Every one has his Fault.' On 23 May 1821 he played Dumain (First Lord) in 'All's well that ends well.' In the summer of 1821 Pritchard joined the York circuit under Mansell, making his first appearance as Rom ...
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John Pritt Harley
John Pritt Harley (February 1786 – 22 August 1858) was an English actor known for his comic acting and singing. Early years Harley was the son of John Harley, a draper and silk mercer, and his wife Elizabeth. He was baptised in the parish church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London, on 5 March 1786. At the age of fifteen, he was apprenticed to a linendraper in Ludgate Hill. While there, he befriended William Oxberry, who later became a well-known actor. Together, they appeared in 1802 in amateur theatricals at the Berwick Street private theatre. Harley was next employed as a clerk to Windus & Holloway, attorneys, in Chancery Lane. In 1806, and following years he acted in provincial theatres in England. At Southend, where he remained for some time, he acquired thorough training in his profession. He became popular for his comic singing, and being extremely thin, he became known as ‘Fat Jack.’ From 1812 to 1814 he was in the north of England. After this, obtaining a ...
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Helena Faucit
Helena Saville Faucit, Lady Martin (11 October 1817 – 31 October 1898) was an English actress. Early life Born in London, she was the daughter of actors John Saville Faucit and Harriet Elizabeth Savill. Her parents separated when she was a girl, and her mother went to live with William Farren in 1825.Carol J. Carlisle, 'Saville , John Faucit (1783?–1853)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 200accessed 2 Nov 2015/ref> With her elder sister Harriet, she was trained for the stage by her step-uncle, Percy Farren. She debuted as Juliet at a small theatre in Richmond, London, Richmond in 1833. Her performance was praised by critics of ''Athenaeum (British magazine), The Athenaeum'', but Farren delayed her professional debut to give her further training. Early career Faucit's first professional appearance was made on 5 January 1836 at Royal Opera House, Covent Garden as Julia in James Sheridan Knowles's ''The Hunchback''. Her d ...
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Samuel Rogers
Samuel Rogers (30 July 1763 – 18 December 1855) was an English poet, during his lifetime one of the most celebrated, although his fame has long since been eclipsed by his Romantic colleagues and friends Wordsworth, Coleridge and Byron. His recollections of these and other friends such as Charles James Fox are key sources for information about London artistic and literary life, with which he was intimate, and which he used his wealth to support. He made his money as a banker and was also a discriminating art collector. Early life and family Rogers was born at Newington Green, then a village north of Islington, and now in Inner London. His father, Thomas Rogers, a banker and briefly MP for Coventry, was the son of a Stourbridge glass manufacturer, who was also a merchant in Cheapside. Thomas married Mary, the only daughter of his father's partner, Daniel Radford, becoming himself a partner shortly afterwards. On his mother's side Samuel Rogers was connected with the well-kn ...
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1838 Plays
Events January–March * January 10 – A fire destroys Lloyd's Coffee House and the Royal Exchange in London. * January 11 – At Morristown, New Jersey, Samuel Morse, Alfred Vail and Leonard Gale give the first public demonstration of Morse's new invention, the telegraph. * January 11 - A 7.5 earthquake strikes the Romanian district of Vrancea causing damage in Moldavia and Wallachia, killing 73 people. * January 21 – The first known report about the lowest temperature on Earth is made, indicating in Yakutsk. * February 6 – Boer explorer Piet Retief and 60 of his men are massacred by King Dingane kaSenzangakhona of the Zulu people, after Retief accepts an invitation to celebrate the signing of a treaty, and his men willingly disarm as a show of good faith. * February 17 – Weenen massacre: Zulu impis massacre about 532 Voortrekkers, Khoikhoi and Basuto around the site of Weenen in South Africa. * February 24 – U.S. Representatives William J. Graves of Kentu ...
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West End Plays
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance languages (''ouest'' in French, ''oest'' in Catalan, ''ovest'' in Italian, ''oeste'' in Spanish and Portuguese). As in other languages, the word formation stems from the fact that west is the direction of the setting sun in the evening: 'west' derives from the Indo-European root ''*wes'' reduced from ''*wes-pero'' 'evening, night', cognate with Ancient Greek ἕσπερος hesperos 'evening; evening star; western' and Latin vesper 'evening; west'. Examples of the same formation in other languages include Latin occidens 'west' from occidō 'to go down, to set' and Hebrew מַעֲרָב maarav 'west' from עֶרֶב erev 'evening'. Navigation To go west using a compass for navigation (in a place where magnetic north is the same dire ...
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