(6 works of Elizabeth Inchbald
English novelist, actress, ...)
6 works of Elizabeth Inchbald
English novelist, actress, and dramatist (1753-1821)
This ebook presents a collection of 6 works of Elizabeth Inchbald. A dynamic table of contents allows you to jump directly to the work selected.
Table of Contents:
A Simple Story
Lover's Vows
Nature and Art
Next Door Neighbours
Such Things Are
The Widow's Vow
The British Theatre, or a Collection of Plays, Which Are Acted at the Theatres Royal, Drury-Lane, Covent Garden, and Haymarket, Vol. 8 of 25: Constant ... Beaux Stratagem, Cato (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from The British Theatre, or a Collection of Play...)
Excerpt from The British Theatre, or a Collection of Plays, Which Are Acted at the Theatres Royal, Drury-Lane, Covent Garden, and Haymarket, Vol. 8 of 25: Constant Couple, Inconstant, Recruiting Officer, Beaux Stratagem, Cato
The biographers Of F arquhar, who differ in some articles concerning him, all agree that he was mar ried, in the year 1704, to a lady, who was so vio lently in love with him, that, despairing to win him by her own attractions, she contrived a vast scheme Of imposition, by which she allured him into wed lock, with the full conviction that he had married a woman of immense fortune.
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After its publication in early 1791, A Simple Story wa...)
After its publication in early 1791, A Simple Story was widely read in England and abroad, going into a second edition in March of the same year. The novels young heroine, Miss Milner, scandalously declares herself in love with her guardian, Dorriforth, a Catholic priest. Dorriforth returns her love and is released from his vows. Though the pair go on to marry, the second half of the novel reveals the disastrous and far-reaching consequences of Miss Milners subsequent adulterous affair.
The critical introduction to this Broadview edition considers such issues as Catholicism, theatricality, the theatre, and the masquerade, while the appendices provide a wide selection of cultural, biographical, and literary contexts for the novel.
Nature and Art (Webster's Spanish Thesaurus Edition)
(Webster's edition of this classic is organized to expose ...)
Webster's edition of this classic is organized to expose the reader to a maximum number of synonyms and antonyms for difficult and often ambiguous English words that are encountered in other works of literature, conversation, or academic examinations. Extremely rare or idiosyncratic words and expressions are given lower priority in the notes compared to words which are ¿difficult, and often encountered¿ in examinations. Rather than supply a single synonym, many are provided for a variety of meanings, allowing readers to better grasp the ambiguity of the English language, and avoid using the notes as a pure crutch. Having the reader decipher a word's meaning within context serves to improve vocabulary retention and understanding. Each page covers words not already highlighted on previous pages. If a difficult word is not noted on a page, chances are that it has been highlighted on a previous page. A more complete thesaurus is supplied at the end of the book; synonyms and antonyms are extracted from Webster's Online Dictionary.
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Next Door Neighbours - Lovers Vows (Works of Elizabeth Inchbald Book 1)
(2 works of Elizabeth Inchbald.
Elizabeth Inchbald (née S...)
2 works of Elizabeth Inchbald.
Elizabeth Inchbald (née Simpson) (17531821) was an English novelist, actress, and dramatist.
Born on 15 October 1753 at Stanningfield, near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, Elizabeth was the eighth of the nine children of John Simpson (died 1761), a farmer, and his wife Mary, née Rushbrook. The family, like several others in the neighbourhood was Roman Catholic. Elizabeth was educated with her sisters at home.
In April 1772, at the age of 18, she went to London to act. (Her brother George had become an actor in 1770.) Young and alone, she was apparently the victim of sexual harassment. Two months later, in June, she agreed to marry a fellow Catholic, the actor Joseph Inchbald (17351779), possibly at least partially for protection. The marriage was reported to have had difficulties. For four years the couple toured Scotland with West Diggess theatre company, a demanding life. In 1776 they moved to Liverpool and Inchbald met actors Sarah Siddons and her brother John Philip Kemble, both of whom became important friends. The Inchbalds subsequently moved to Canterbury and Yorkshire. After Joseph Inchbalds death in 1779, Inchbald continued to act for several years, in Dublin, London, and elsewhere. Her acting career, while only moderately successful, spanned seventeen years and she appeared in many classical roles, as well as in new plays such as Hannah Cowleys The Belles Stratagem.
Between 1784 and 1805 she had nineteen of her comedies, sentimental dramas, and farces (many of which were translations from the French) performed at London theatres. Eighteen of her plays were published, though she wrote several more; the exact number is in dispute though most recent commentators claim between 21 and 23. Her two novels have been frequently reprinted. She also did considerable editorial and critical work. Her literary start began with writing for The Artist and Edinburgh Review. A four-volume autobiography was destroyed before her death upon the advice of her confessor, but she left some of her diaries. The latter are currently held at the Folger Shakespeare Library and an edition was recently published.
Her play Lovers Vows (1798) was featured by Jane Austen in her novel Mansfield Park.
A political radical and friend of William Godwin and Thomas Holcroft, her political beliefs can more easily be found in her novels than in her plays due to the constrictive environment of the patent theatres of Georgian London. Inchbalds life was marked by tensions between, on the one hand, political radicalism, a passionate nature evidently attracted to a number of her admirers, and a love of independence, and on the other hand, a desire for social respectability and a strong sense of the emotional attraction of authority figures. She died on 1 August 1821 in Kensington. She quarrelled publicly with Mary Wollstonecraft in 1797, when Wollstonecrafts marriage to William Godwin made it clear that she had not been married to Gilbert Imlay, the father of her elder daughter Fanny. This was deeply resented by Godwin.
In recent decades Inchbald has been the subject of increasing critical interest, particularly among scholars interested in womens writing.
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Nature and Art commands a central place in the history...)
Nature and Art commands a central place in the history of the English Jacobin novel. Published in 1796, the story explores the opposition between the upbringing and actions of Henry Norwynne, an unspoiled child of nature who has been reared without books on an African island, and the corrupt conduct of his aristocratic older cousin, William. Inchbald was one of the best-known writers of her time, and Nature and Art represents her most concerted attempt to analyze the effects of education, power, and privilege on human behaviour.
This Broadview edition includes a critical introduction, contemporary reviews of the novel, and primary source material relating to the novels composition and its philosophical influences (including documents by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and William Godwin). Documents on education, political and religious corruption, and African colonization provide further historical context.
British novelist, playwright, and actress Elizabeth was among the first women to find renown as a playwright.
Background
Born on 15 October 1753 at Stanningfield, near Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, Elizabeth was the eighth of the nine children of John Simpson (died 1761), a farmer, and his wife Mary, née Rushbrook. The family, like several others in the neighbourhood was Roman Catholic.
Education
Unlike her brother, who was sent to school, Elizabeth was educated with her sisters at home.
Career
Drawing on her experiences on the stage, Inchbald also became the first prominent British female theater critic.
In total, she wrote or adapted about 20 plays, as well as publishing two novels later in her career.
Her work is primarily remembered for her deft use of comedy and for her expression of contemporary social issues in her works.
Inchbald's first dramatic appearance was on September 4, 1772, as the character Cordelia opposite her husband's King Lear in Shakespeare's King Lear.
There, Inchbald spent much of her time studying parts but little time in playing them;
They then left Scotland to travel to France, where they hoped to settle for some time.
However, the couple quickly ran out of money and was forced to return to London, arriving there in October of 1776.
This stay was also brief, and the Inchbalds again left for the countryside where they could more readily find work.
Over the next several months, the Inchbalds passed through Cheshire, Liverpool, Manchester, and Canterbury before taking positions with a theatrical touring company serving York and the surrounding area.
After the death of her husband, Inchbald continued to act—she made her London debut on October 3, 1780, as Bellario in Philaster—but increasingly turned her attention to writing.
During the summer of 1781, Inchbald traveled to the country and stayed on a farm with her mother and sister.
She did so while successfully managing the family farm, maintaining a home that became a center of Suffolk society, and instilling in her children a love of literature by reading to them as well as taking them to see plays in nearby Bury. As a young person, Inchbald struggled with a speech impediment.
Her first works were short farces titled "A Peep into a Planet, " "The Ancient Law, " and "Polygamy. "
The pieces were performed and no manuscript remains, although the Dictionary of Literary Biography speculated that the works "were probably in the same broad farcical style as her surviving farces. "
There she wrote her first comedy. In 1784 Inchbald had her first work accepted by a theatrical company for production.
This play, A Mogul Tale, was staged in the summer of that year; Inchbald appeared in the play herself in the role of Selina.
The run was successful, and Inchbald received a fair amount of money from the performances.
In 1785 another of Inchbald's plays, I'll Tell You What! , was staged by the same theatrical company, again with significant success.
Also in 1785, another company put on Inchbald's Appearance is Against Them.
This work, along with The Widow's Vow, are among the few of Inchbald's early works to survive to this day.
During the 1786 Inchbald also turned her hand to translation and adaptation.
Inchbald's adaptation of one of Kotzebue's plays makes an appearance in Jane Austen's classic novel Mansfield Park.
Beginning in 1788, Inchbald's plays were presented during the summer theater season at Haymarket.
In 1789 Inchbald retired from acting altogether, earning her living exclusively through her writing.
She returned to the draft of a novel she had written several years previously.
She revised this draft and it was published in February of 1791 as A Simple Story.
The novel was immediately successful, with its first edition selling out in under a month.
Inchbald moved away from these standard concepts with 1792's The Massacre, one of her more unusual works.
She printed The Massacre in 1792 and then quickly withdrew it, not wanting to become embroiled in political matters.
This year also marked her last with the summer theater at Haymarket. During the 1796 and early 1806, Inchbald wrote many of the comedies that defined her as dramatist and remained popular for years to come.
Many of these plays were first performed in London's Covent Garden.
Typically, these works relied heavily on sentimentalism, exemplifying Inchbald's "basic formula. "
In the midst of this period of high comedy, Inchbald wrote and published her second novel, Nature and Art.
This short work was also successful, although less so than A Simple Story.
Annibel Jenkins commented that Nature and Art "was admired, not loved" by contemporary audiences.
Elizabeth Jenkins noted that "during the last hundred and fifty years, while A Simple Story is remembered, Nature and Art, whose brilliant passages are not only painful but short in relation to the whole, has almost disappeared into oblivion".
In 1797 Inchbald published one of her most successful plays, Wives as They Were and Maids as They Are, which showed Inchbald at the height of her style.
Between her novels and dramatic works, Inchbald made a substantial sum of money.
Beginning in 1805, Inchbald turned her writings in a new direction.
They convinced Inchbald to write critical remarks for a series of plays they planned to publish, titled The British Theatre. The first play in the series, Colman the Younger's The Mountaineers, appeared in February of 1806, with subsequent plays released weekly. By the time the collected edition was published in 1808, the plays totaled 125 in 25 volumes. About 1809, Inchbald at last moved permanently to St. George's Row near London's Regent Park. At the time, this area was somewhat removed from the main part of London, and Inchbald soon withdrew from dramatic society, spending much of her time attending church, writing letters, and seeing neighbors. Inchbald's works have remained in print and continue to be performed; although she wrote her memoirs, they went unpublished and Inchbald burned them prior to her death. Over the years, interpretations of Inchbald's life and works have varied. Victorians made much of her later piety and generous support of her family and friends. Today, scholars increasingly have turned to the study of Inchbald's drama, looking for a contemporary understanding of the lives of English men and women in the late eighteenth century.
(2 works of Elizabeth Inchbald.
Elizabeth Inchbald (née S...)
Religion
Her family, like several others in the neighbourhood was Roman Catholic.
Personality
Elizabeth suffered from a speech impediment.
She was not a great actress but was greatly admired for her beauty and personality.
Quotes from others about the person
Jenkins commented that Inchbald "was very discouraged about her acting; after all, she had very little experience, but she was then—and always—very impatient. "
The Dictionary of Literary Biography summarized Inchbald's commentary by saying: "She knew an adundance of anecdotes about the actors.
She had a shrewd knowledge of which plays were vigorous and which [lacked vitality], which scenes and which roles were best….
Most enthusiasts of the theater, though they might disagree with her about a scene or a character, approved her remarks. "
Elizabeth Jenkins commented that Inchbald "was now impatient of any idea of marriage to which she could not attach some romantic luster of her own peculiar kind. "
Connections
After her marriage to Joseph Inchbald she acted in provincial towns with her husband and appeared in London in 1780, retiring from the stage in 1789.