Richard Sheridan

Richard Brinsley Sheridan was born in Dublin, Ireland, but was brought to England at the age of eight, never to return. He was educated at a British boarding school, where his classmates teased him because his father had the ungentlemanly profession of actor. He came from a literary family: his mother was also a successful playwright and novelist, while his grandfather had been a good friend of Jonathan Swift. Not long after leaving his boarding school, Sheridan moved with his family to Bath, where he fell in love with Elizabeth Linley, the famous and beautiful young singer he was to marry after fighting a series of a scandalous duels that captivated British society. In desperate need of money, he wrote The Rivals in 1775. After a poor initial reception, the play was revised and went on to become enormously successful. On the strength of this work, Sheridan was offered a job managing the historic Drury Lane Theater, which he went on to own. His father later served as the theater’s manager. Sheridan had ambitions to be a true gentleman, however, which meant escaping the world of the theater. After writing a few other plays, including his other masterpiece The School for Scandal (1777), he used money earned from the theater to purchase a seat in parliament. He would serve in a variety of governmental roles over the next thirty-two years and become one of the most respected orators of his time. He was always extravagant with money, however, and in 1808, when the Drury Lane Theater burned down in a fire, he was bankrupted and removed from parliament. He spent his final years hounded by his creditors.