The Critic or a Tragedy Rehearsed a Dramatic Piece in Three Acts As It is Performed at the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane By, Richard Brinsley Sheridan Esqr.

Publisher Marketing: The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration and rapidly growing technology and expanding record-keeping made possible by advances in the printing press. In its determination to preserve the century of revolution, Gale initiated a revolution of its own: digitization of epic proportions to preserve these invaluable works in the largest archive of its kind. Now for the first time these high-quality digital copies of original 18th century manuscripts are available in print, making them highly accessible to libraries, undergraduate students, and independent scholars. Western literary study flows out of eighteenth-century works by Alexander Pope, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Frances Burney, Denis Diderot, Johann Gottfried Herder, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and others. Experience the birth of the modern novel, or compare the development of language using dictionaries and grammar discourses. ++++The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification: ++++British LibraryT000767Edition statement from half-title. The titlepage is engraved. With a final advertisement leaf. In fact a reimpression of the first edition; no press figure on p. 52; p.9 catchword: sneer. On p. 84, in the middle of the page, "awkward" is correctly speLondon: printed for T. Becket, 1781. [4], ii, [4],98, [2]p.; 8 Contributor Bio:  Sheridan, Richard Brinsley Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) Dublin-born playwright and theatre manager, who produced three classic comedies within a five-year writing career. "Whatever Sheridan has done or chosen to do," Lord Byron wrote, "has been, par excellence, the best of its kind." He was the son of the Irish actor-manager Thomas Sheridan and his wife Frances, a popular novelist. In 1775 the double success of Sheridan's first great comedy, "The Rivals", and his comic opera "The Duenna" allowed him to buy Garrick's share in Drury Lane; he became manager in 1776 and sole owner two years later. Another brilliant comedy of manners, "The School for Scandal", opened in 1777 at Drury Lane to universal acclaim. He also wrote a burlesque of heroic drama, "The Critic "(1779). All are high comedies, featuring such memorable characters as Mrs Malaprop, Lady Teazle, and Mr Puff. Unfortunately he was not so brilliant in his management of Drury Lane. His love of extravagant spectacles almost led to bankruptcy, and he constantly became embroiled in legal action against managers of unlicensed theatres. In 1794 he rebuilt his theatre to such vast proportions that Mrs Siddons called it "a wilderness of a place." In 1780 Sheridan abandoned the theatre to enter parliament, where he gained a reputation as a fine orator (on one occasion speaking for over five hours). When Drury Lane caught fire in 1809 he drank a leisurely glass of wine at the Great Piazza coffee house, watching the flames consume his theatre and remarking "A man may surely be allowed to take a glass of wine at his own fireside." He died in poverty.