Richard Brinsley Sheridan

Jack E. DeRochi is associate professor of English at Winthrop University. He has published several articles on late eighteenth-century drama and satire in such publications as Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Research and Studies in American Humor. His essay on the emergence of the masculine gothic was included in Prologues, Epilogues, Curtain-Raisers and Afterpieces: The Rest of the Eighteenth-Century London Stage (2007).Daniel J. Ennis is professor of English at Coastal Carolina University. He is the author of Enter the Press-Gang: Representations of Naval Impressment in Eighteenth-Century British Literature (2002) and edited, with Judith B. Slagle, a collection of essays entitled Prologues, Epilogues, Curtain-Raisers and Afterpieces: The Rest of the Eighteenth-Century London Stage (2007). He has published essays on John Dryden, Christopher Smart and Lord Byron among others.

Transformative figures in their own right, the editors effectively update the enigmatic impresario for a current-day scholarly audience. The strength of DeRochi and Ennis’ collection resides in the treatment of its principal subject as a dynamic and complex participant in the social, political, and artistic discourses of the eighteenth century. . .DeRochi and Ennis bring together discrete critical voices, creating a holistic portrait of Sheridan as poet, playwright, critic, orator, and polemicist. In its desire to bring Sheridan into the twenty-first century, the collection imitates its principal subject, whose ability to transform himself with the changing times is dramatically and decisively detailed in these pages. . . .the collection is astoundingly great.

• Illustrations AcknowledgmentsIntroductionJack E. DeRochi and Daniel J. EnnisOne: The Many Lives of Richard Brinsley SheridanJack E. DeRochi Two: Sheridan’s Early StyleRobert JonesThree: The Literary Origins of Sir Lucius O’TriggerDavid HaleyFour: Reflections upon Maintaining a Competitive Edge: The Duenna and her Peers at Drury Lane Mita ChoudhuryFive: Schools Beyond Scandal, 1776-1800 Emily FriedmanSix: The Rule of Scandal: Sheridan in the Age of Wilde and Shaw John VanceSeven: Naumachia and the Structure of The Critic Daniel J. EnnisEight: The Lees and Sheridan: An Unexamined Connection Steven GoresNine: Sheridan’s Courtroom Dramas: The Impeachment of Warren Hastings and the Trial of the Bounty MutineersGlynis RidleyTen: Pizarro’s Spectacular Dialectics: Sheridan’s Bridge to the Cosmopolitical Future Daniel O’QuinnEleven: Sheridan and WomenMarianna D’EzioTwelve: Caricaturing Sheridan David Francis TaylorBibliography Index About the Contributors