This new collection of essays on Richard Brinsley Sheridan brings the most important British playwright of the eighteenth century back to the forefront of literary and cultural studies of the era. While his pyrotechnic life as a romantic hero, playwright, Member of Parliament, and theatre manager has generated a number of recent biographies, it is Sheridan's works-not just plays but also poetry and orations-that endure. These essays reclaim the legacy of the man of letters and partisan bon vivant who burst from obscurity to become a powerful cultural force in Georgian London. This collection covers the many lives of Sheridan, taking into account both his variegated career and the competing accounts of the man, as well as his early verse, which lays the foundation for his success as a playwright. Chapters are devoted to Sheridan's theatre, and provide innovative readings of his most famous dramatic pieces: The Rivals, The Duenna, The School for Scandal, The Critic, and Pizarro. The volume also includes extensive discussion of the dramatic highs of Sheridan's long political career, thus placing the playwright-politician firmly in the world in which performance and politics were inextricably entwined. Contributors: Mita Choudhury, Jack E. DeRochi, Marianna D'Ezio, Daniel J. Ennis, Emily Friedman, Steven Gores, David Haley, Robert W. Jones, Daniel O'Quinn, Glynis Ridley, John Vance, David Francis Taylor

Edited by Jack DeRochi and Daniel Ennis

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction
Jack E. DeRochi and Daniel J. Ennis

One: The Many Lives of Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Jack E. DeRochi

Two: Sheridan's Early Style
Robert Jones

Three: The Literary Origins of Sir Lucius O'Trigger
David Haley

Four: Reflections upon Maintaining a Competitive Edge: The Duenna and her Peers at Drury Lane
Mita Choudhury

Five: Schools Beyond Scandal, 1776-1800
Emily Friedman

Six: The Rule of Scandal: Sheridan in the Age of Wilde and Shaw
John Vance

Seven: Naumachia and the Structure of The Critic
Daniel J. Ennis

Eight: The Lees and Sheridan: An Unexamined Connection
Steven Gores

Nine: Sheridan's Courtroom Dramas: The Impeachment of Warren Hastings and the Trial of the Bounty Mutineers
Glynis Ridley

Ten: Pizarro's Spectacular Dialectics: Sheridan's Bridge to the Cosmopolitical Future
Daniel O'Quinn

Eleven: Sheridan and Women
Marianna D'Ezio

Twelve: Caricaturing Sheridan
David Francis Taylor

Bibliography

Index

About the Contributors