Antony Brewer ( fl. 1655) was a dramatist, author of ''The Love Sick King'', to whom a number of other works have been attributed.

The ''Love-Sick King''

Brewer wrote ''The Love-sick King, an English Tragical History, with the Life and Death of Cartesmunda, the Fair Nun of Winchester, by Anth. Brewer'' (1655) It was revived at the King's Theatre in 1680, and reprinted in that year under the title of ''The Perjured Nun''.

William Rufus Chetwood William Rufus Chetwood (died 1766) was an English or Anglo-Irish publisher and bookseller, and a prolific writer of plays and adventure novels. He also penned a valuable ''General History of the Stage''. Publishing and prompting Nothing certain i ...

included the ''Love-sick King'' in his ''Select Collection of Old Plays'', published at Dublin in 1750, but made no attempt to correct the text of the carelessly printed old edition. The play was written in verse, but it is printed almost throughout as prose.

Attribution of other works

After all allowance has been made for textual corruptions, it cannot be said that the ''Love-sick King'' is a work of much ability; and it is rash to follow Kirkman, Baker, and Halliwell in identifying Antony Brewer with the "T. B." whose name is on the title-page of the ''Country Girl'' (1647), a well-written comedy, which in parts (notably in the third act) closely recalls the diction and versification of

Massinger Massinger is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Philip Massinger Philip Massinger (1583 – 17 March 1640) was an English dramatist. His finely plotted plays, including '' A New Way to Pay Old Debts'', ''The City Mada ...

. There is no known dramatist of the time to whom the initials T. B. could belong. There was a versatile writer named Thomas Brewer, and the title-pages to his tracts are usually signed with his initials, not with the full name. His claim to the ''Country Girl'' would be quite as reasonable as Antony onyBrewer's. In 1677

John Leanerd John Leanerd ( fl. 1679) was a British playwright, notorious as a plagiarist. Works Leanerd published: * '' The Country Innocence; or, the Chambermaid turn'd Quaker'', London, a comedy acted at the London Theatre Royal in Lent, 1677, by the youn ...

, whom Langbaine calls "a confident plagiarist"', reprinted the ''Country Girl'', with a few slight alterations, as his own, under the title of ''Country Innocence'' Another play formerly ascribed to Brewer was ''Lingua, or the Combat of the Five Senses for Superiority'' (1607), a well-known dramatic piece (included in the various editions of Dodsley), constructed partly in the style of a morality and partly of a masque. The mistake arose thus: Kirkman, the bookseller and publisher, in printing his catalogues of plays, left blanks where the names of the writers were unknown to him. Annexed to the 'Love-sick King' was the name Antony Brewer ; then came the plays ''Landgartha'', ''Love's Loadstone'', ''Lingua'' and ''Love's Dominion'' Phillips, who was followed by Winstanley, misunderstanding the use of Kirkman's blanks, promptly assigned all these pieces to Brewer. One other play, ''The Merry Devil of Edmonton'' (1608) has been with similar carelessness pronounced to be Antony Brewer's on the strength of an entry in the Stationers' Registry which refers to the prose tract of Thomas Brewer's ''Merry Devil''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brewer, Antony Year of birth missing Year of death missing English dramatists and playwrights English male dramatists and playwrights