Background
She was born in 1683 in London, the daughter of Anne Gourlaw and William Oldfield.
( The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration...)
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 Library T050022 Pseudonymous letters from Anne Oldfield to Anne Bracegirdle. With a half-title. London : printed for Jacob Robinson, 1743. 4,24p. ; 8°
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She was born in 1683 in London, the daughter of Anne Gourlaw and William Oldfield.
Oldfield must have had a basic education because her biographers recount that she read plays voraciously throughout her youth.
She worked for a time as apprentice to a semptress, until she attracted George Farquhar's attention by reciting some lines from a play in his hearing. She thereupon obtained an engagement at Drury Lane, where her beauty rather than her ability slowly brought her into favour, and it was not until ten years later that she was generally acknowledged as the best actress of her time.
In polite comedy, especially, she was unrivalled, and even the usually grudging Cibber acknowledged that she had as much as he to do with the success of the Careless Husband (1704), in which she created the part of Lady Modish, reluctantly given her because Mrs Verbruggen was ill. In tragedy, too, she won laurels, and the list of her parts, many of them original, is a long and varied one. She was the theatrical idol of her day.
Her exquisite acting and lady-like carriage were the delight of her contemporaries, and her beauty and generosity found innumerable eulogists, as well as sneering detractors.
She was but forty-seven when she died on the 23rd of October 1730, leaving all the court and half the town in tears. She divided her property, for that time a large one, between her natural sons, the first by Arthur Mainwaring (1668 -1712) who had left her and his son half his fortune on his death and the second by Lieutenant-General Charles Churchill (d. 1745).
Mrs Oldfield was buried in Westminster Abbey, beneath the monument to Congreve, but when Churchill applied for permission to erect a monument there to her memory the dean of Westminster refused it.
( The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration...)
(Includes 2 complete works: The History of the English Sta...)
Quotes from others about the person
Alexander Pope, in his Sober Advice from Horace, wrote of her: "Engaging Oldfield, who, with grace and ease. Could join the arts to ruin and to please. "It was to her that the satirist alluded as the lady who detested being buried in woollen, who said to her maid" No, let a charming chintz and Brussels lace. Wrap my cold limbs and shade my lifeless face. One would not, sure, be frightful when one's dead, And-Betty-give this cheek a little red. "
Alexander Pope, in his Sober Advice from Horace, wrote of her "Engaging Oldfield, who, with grace and ease, Could join the arts to ruin and to please. "
It was to her that he alluded as the lady who detested being buried in woollen, who said to her maid "No, let a charming chintz and Brussels lace Wrap my cold limbs and shade my lifeless face; One would not, sure, be frightful when one's dead, And Betty give this cheek a little red. "
Anne Oldfield began a decade-long relationship with Whig politician Arthur Maynwaring sometime around 1700. When Maynwaring died in 1712, Oldfield was tortured with rumors that he had died from a venereal disease that she had given to him. In order to clear both their names, she ordered an official autopsy to be performed on her former lover's body, which revealed that he had, in fact, died of tuberculosis. Oldfield was three months pregnant at the time, but her child is not believed to have survived the birth.
Several years after Maynwaring's death, Oldfield began a relationship with Charles Churchill. The two lived together for many years and had a son, Charles. However, during this pregnancy, Olfield had many negative side effects and was forced to leave the theater for several months. She never fully recovered her health.
