Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Sheridan was born September of 1751 into a family of theatre, literature and infamous reputation. His grandfather, Dr. Thomas Sheridan, was known for his wit, befriending and writing the life of John Swift. His father, Thomas Sheridan, began as an actor at Drury Lane, moving then to managing the Dublin Theatre (which he was run out of after upholding the poetry rather than popular opinions in Rev. James Miller’s Version of Voltaire’s Mohomet) and lecturing on elocution and oratory at Oxford and other institutions. His mother, an authoress gained success with her novel, “The History of Miss Sidney Biddulph” wrote the unpublished comedy The Trip to Bath, which some say was the foundation for The Rivals. Richard, however, in comparison to his two older brothers and family history, was considered to be “a most impenetrable dunce,” thus sent to Harrow, where he was the popular of idle boys and mourned by his professors.
It was at Harrow as a “dunce” of nineteen, along with a schoolfellow, that Sheridan translated Aristænetus with parts of Theocritus to write a long farce in rehearsal form which was published. It was also this year that he, along with many other gentlemen fell in love with the beautiful singer, Eliza Ann Linley, daughter of English musician Thomas Linley. To flee her many pursuers, they secretly wed in France, remarrying publicly a year later in 1773, at the ages of 19 and 21. The young newlyweds settled in Portman Square where, in 1774, Sheridan completed The Rivals. First produced in Covent Gardens, its opening night resulted in disaster because of bad acting. Once re-cast, it became the great success heralded today. Sheridan then continued his triumph without break in writing an operatic play by teaming up with his father-in-law (who arranged and composed the music) called The Duenna in 1775. By this time, he and his father after quarreling, were no longer speaking; when his father traveled from Drury Lane(where he was acting again) to Covent Gardens to see his son’s new opera, Sheridan furtively watched his father from the wings and burst into tears once at home, because of the cutting silence that traveled between the two. The Duenna was another success for Sheridan, causing the 24 year-old dramatist greater success than most knew in a lifetime. It was also this year that he had personal success in the birth of his son, Tom whom he and his wife adored.
In June of 1776, Sheridan owned two-fourteenths of Drury Lane (his managerial skills however, greatly paled in comparison to his literary ones). In 1777, he continued work on The School for Scandal which was first written as satire of the Pump-Room at Bath and the written as elaborations on non-fictitious characters. The two separately plotted plays finally melded into one on the eighth of May in 1777. This conglomerate proved to be yet another Sheridan success in which two years after it first production, it was still said to “dampen the new pieces”. In 1778 he, along with his father-in-law and a third partner, claimed total ownership of Drury Lane. The following year, he produced his final play, The Critic; or, a Tragedy Rehearsed.
In 1780 Sheridan’s short life as a dramatist ended at age twenty-nine when he began a career in the House of Commons. His vibrant life continued on in the realms of society and politics until his death in 1816 at the age of sixty-five.
