Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816), by turn a dramatist, theatre manager and politician, was born in Dublin to a literary family, son of the actor-manager and educationalist Thomas Sheridan and Frances [Sheridan], a novelist, and grandson of Swift’s friend Thomas Sheridan. He was educated at Samuel Whyte’s school in Dublin, and later at Harrow while his family stayed in France to avoid bankruptcy. On leaving school he was 'put on the town’ and occupied himself in fencing and riding lessons until the family moved in 1770 to the fashionable city of Bath, where his observations of social life provided him with the mainstay of his comedies. In the following year he eloped to France with Elizabeth Ann Linley, daughter of a singing master, and married her while both were minors. There he fought two duels with one Matthews, a married man who pursued her, and was gravely wounded in the second. Back in England, he entered the Middle Bar while Elizabeth embarked succcessfully on a singing career. They were lawfully married in 1773. Sheridan began writing for the stage to make money but also because he was unhappy at his wife working to support them. His first play, The Rivals (1775), was successfu, and this was followed in the same year by St Patrick’s Day, a farce, and then by The Duenna, a comic opera. Sheridan’s initial misgivings about involvement with theatre, probably arising from his father’s earlier troubles at Smock Alley, Dublin, soon gave way to grandiose theatrical ambitions. Accordingly, in 1776, he bought out David Garrick’s half-share in the Drury Lane Theatre with borrowed money and became its manager. In 1776, he staged A Trip to Scarborough, a refined version of Vanburgh’s The Relapse, to be followed in 1777 by his masterpiece, The School for Scandal. The Critic (1779) was his last original play. Pizarro, produced in the same year, was an adaptation of a tragedy in German by Kotzebue. Sheridan borrowed more money to become, at twenty-eight, sole proprietor at Drury Lane.

In 1780 he entered politics as MP for Stafford, making his mark as an orator with his maiden speech on the Begum of Oude in support of Edmund Burke’s impeachment of Warren Hastings. His moving and effective appeal on behalf of the injured Indians caused Burke to say, 'that’s the true style, something between poetry and prose, and better than both’, while Byron was to write that Sheridan had composed the best speech, the best comedy, the best opera, and the best satire of the age. Sheridan served as Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in 1782, Secretary to the Treasury in 1783, and Treasurer of the Navy in 1806 when the Whigs returned to power. In 1807 he was defeated at election but took another seat in the gift of his friend the Prince Regent. Sheridan’s belief that the Americans were being treated rashly by Charles James Fox’s Whig government was a factor militating against his further advance in politics, though his critics, such as Eaton Stannard Barrett, considered him an inept administrator. His wife, meanwhile, considered him underpaid for his trouble, especially as his personal debts were mounting. Although he met her objections by securing a post in Ireland for his son Tom, and the Receiver-Generalship of Cornwall for himself, his insistence on expensive living and his philandering led to worsening relations between them. Elizabeth died in 1792, and three years after Sheridan married the nineteen year-old Elizabeth Jane Ogle.

Sheridan was ruined financially when Drury Lane burnt down in 1809, ten years after he had raised large sums to refurbish it, and he was forced to relinquish his controlling interest in the theatre to Samuel Whitbread. Failing to get re-elected in 1812, he diverted [into his personal finances] funds lent him by the Prince to buy a seat, and spoiled the friendship. About this time, Whitbread secured his release when he was arrested for his debts. His last, increasingly wretched years were marred by drunkenness and the depredations of the bailiffs who carried off his household furniture. When he died at sixty-five he had reduced his debts to a little over £5,000, settling £40,000 on his wife, who was dying of cancer. His easy-going character was a blend of physical indolence and intellectual brilliance enabling him - as Byron put it - to 'beat them all, in all he ever attempted’. The remarkable vein of literary talent in his family was perpetuated by others including his grand-daughters Lady Dufferin and Caroline Norton and, at a greater remove, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu and James Sheridan Knowles. The first biography was written by Thomas Moore, and was damned by the Prince Regent, who fulminated against the author for 'cutting and maiming and murderously attempting the life of Sheridan’. See Moore, Memoirs of the Life of the Right Honourable Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1825); James Morwood, The Life and Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1985), and Cecil Price, ed., The Dramatic Works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1973).

The Rivals (published 1774), a comedy of manners by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Lydia Languish, a wealthy young lady in Bath, welcomes the advances of the dashing Ensign Beverley, really Jack Absolute in disguise. Her friend Julia Melville is being wooed by Faulkland, a fashionably sentimental lover whose exaggerated jealousy tries her patience. Jack refuses to comply with the plans Sir Anthony, his autocratic father, has formed with Lydia’s guardian Mrs. Malaprop - until he realizes that the girl in question is the very one he loves, and whose dislike of snobbery he has countered by pretending to be devoid of family connections. Sir Lucius O’Trigger encourages Bob Acres to challenge Jack in his character as Beverley, while in his own character Jack is pressed to duel with Sir Lucius. The duels are prevented in a farcical climax with all characters on stage, and the play ends happily for the young lovers. At the first production at Covent Garden (17 January 1775), the belligent stage-Irish character of Sir Lucius caused offence. In altering the play, Sheridan brought it more into line with the patriotic spirit of Grattan’s parliament by giving Lucius the flimsy excuse that he is defending his country’s honour.

The Duenna (1775), a comic opera by Richard Brinsley Sheridan; produced at Drury Lane where it ran for seventy-five days, with music based on popular airs of the time. Don Jerome, an irascible father, obstinately decides that his daughter Louisa will marry the unpleasant Isaac, a wealthy Jew, though she loves Antonio. When Don Jerome discovers that the Duenna, Louisa’s chaperone, is acting as an intermediary between Louisa and Antonio, he dismisses her and locks Louisa up in the house. Swopping places with the Duenna, Louisa manages to escape in disguise. Isaac is tricked into marrying the older woman, inadvertently bringing the young lovers together.

The School for Scandal (1777), a comedy of manners by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, first produced at Drury Lane. The hypocritical Joseph Surface want to marry Maria, the young ward of Sir Peter Teazle, for her money, while his younger brother, Charles, is in love with her. Sir Peter, recently married to a high-spirited young wife, dislikes Charles but Sir Oliver Surface returns from India and tests the brothers’ qualities in a series interviews conducted in disguise which reveal the younger man’s worth. Joseph is finally unmasked when he attempts to seduce Lady Teazle. Charles marries Maria and the Teazles retire to rustic honour, their differences resolved. The play mocks the pretensions of English polite society in the fashionable set gathered around Lady Sneerwell, including Sir Benjamin Backbite, the poet, and Snake, a scandalmonger.

The Critic, or a Tragedy Rehearsed (1779), a comedy by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, first produced at Drury Lane, and based on a burlesque by George Villiers Buckingham (The Rehearsal). Conceived as a parody of the sentimental drama as well as actors and critics of the period, it concerns the production of a play called The Spanish Armada, with characters such as Sir Walter Raleigh, the Earl of Leicester, Lord Burleigh, and Don Ferolo Whiskerandos. Richard Cumberland, progenitor of the sentimental genre, is caricatured as Sir Fretful Plagiary. Two fierce and foolish critics, Dangle and Sneer, are invited to the rehearsal by the author, Mr. Puff, who considers the play less important than good advertising. He and his guests engage in heavy-going literary discussions during various interruptions in the rehearsal. Numerous topical references in the original stage-version were replaced by others for publication in 1781.