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Hannah Cowley was an English playwright and poet. Although Cowley's plays and poetry did not enjoy wide popularity after the 19th century, critic Melinda Finberg rates her as "one…
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Hannah Cowley Country Kingdom of Great Britain
Hannah Cowley (née Parkhouse; 14 March 1743 – 11 March 1809) was an English playwright and poet. Although Cowley's plays and poetry did not enjoy wide popularity after the 19th century, critic Melinda Finberg rates her as "one of the foremost playwrights of the late eighteenth century" whose "skill in writing fluid, sparkling dialogue and creating sprightly, memorable comic characters compares fa…
Hannah Cowley was an English playwright and poet. Although Cowley's plays and poetry did not enjoy wide popularity after the 19th century, critic Melinda Finberg rates her as "one of the foremost playwrights of the late eighteenth century" whose "skill in writing fluid, sparkling dialogue and creating sprightly, memorable comic characters compares favourably with her better-known contemporaries, Goldsmith and Sheridan." Cowley's plays were produced frequently in her lifetime. The major themes of her plays – including her first, The Runaway (1776), and her major success, which is being revived,
Hannah Cowley (née Parkhouse; 14 March 1743 – 11 March 1809) was an English playwright and poet. Although Cowley's plays and poetry did not enjoy wide popularity after the 19th century, critic Melinda Finberg rates her as "one of the foremost playwrights of the late eighteenth century" whose "skill in writing fluid, sparkling dialogue and creating sprightly, memorable comic characters compares favourably with her better-known contemporaries, Goldsmith and Sheridan." Cowley's plays were produced frequently in her lifetime. The major themes of her plays – including her first, The Runaway (1776), and her major success, which is being revived, The Belle's Stratagem (1780) – revolve around marriage and how women strive to overcome the injustices imposed by family life and social custom.
Born Hannah Parkhouse, she was the daughter of Hannah (née Richards) and Philip Parkhouse, a bookseller in Tiverton, Devon. Sources disagree about some details of her married life, citing her marriage date as either 1768 or 1772 and claiming she had either three or four children. Shortly after her marriage to Thomas Cowley, the couple moved to London, where Thomas worked as an official in the Stamp Office and as a part-time journalist.
The introduction to her 1813 collected works gives an account of how Cowley was struck by a sudden desire to write while attending a play with her husband. "So delighted with this?" she boasted to him. "Why I could write as well myself!" Thomas teased her, but by the middle of the next day Cowley showed him the first act of her comedy The Runaway. If the substance of the story is true, this visit to the theatre could have occurred no later than 1775, for the rest of The Runaway was written, sent to the actor-manager David Garrick and produced at Drury Lane theatre by 15 February 1776.
The Runaway enjoyed 17 performances in its first season at Drury Lane and 39 in London by 1800, a success that encouraged Cowley to write more, though her mentor Garrick retired after the 1776 season. She wrote her next two plays, the farce Who's the Dupe? and the tragedy Albina, before the year was out.
Source: Hannah Cowley (writer) (CC BY-SA)
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Who's the Dupe? and Albina encountered difficulties in production. The new manager of Drury Lane, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, shelved The Runaway for most of the 1777 season. Miffed, Cowley sent Albina to Drury Lane's rival theatre in London, Covent Garden, but it met with no better reception there and the script alternated between the theatres for the next two years. Meanwhile, Sheridan agreed to produce Who's the Dupe?, but delayed its 1779 première until late spring, an unprofitable time for a new play to open.
The production of Albina generated public controversy for Cowley. While this play was bouncing between Drury Lane and Covent Garden, writer Hannah More's plays Percy (1777) and The Fatal Falsehood (1779) opened at Covent Garden. Watching Percy aroused Cowley's suspicions: Fatal Falsehood confirmed Cowley's belief that More had plagiarised from Albina.
As Cowley later wrote in her preface to the printed edition of Albina, hers and More's plays do indeed have "wonderful resemblances". Fatal Falsehood's opening on 6 May 1779, was followed by press charges (perhaps written by Thomas Cowley) that More stole her ideas from Cowley. On 10 August, More wrote to the St. James Chronicle to protest that she "never saw, heard, or read, a single line of Mrs. Cowley's Tragedy." In her preface to Albina, Cowley allows that the theatre managers, who in those days doubled as script editors, may have inadvertently given More her ideas: "Amidst the croud of Plots, and Stage Contrivances, in which a Manager is involv'd, recollection is too frequently mistaken for the suggestions of imagination" [emphasis in original].
Although she continued to enjoy a brilliant literary career, More wrote no more for the stage after her paper war with Cowley. Albina finally opened on 31 July 1779 at the Haymarket, a summer theatre more practised in staging comedies. It was neither a financial nor a critical success.
With the Hannah More controversy behind her, Cowley wrote her most popular and enduring comedy, The Belle's Stratagem, which was produced at Covent Garden in 1780. It was performed 28 nights in its first season and 118 times in London before 1800, a respectable success that consolidated her family's financial position.
Her next play, The World as it Goes; or, a Party at Montpelier (later entitled Second Thoughts Are Best) was a flop, but she continued to write until 1794, seeing seven more plays into production: Which is the Man?, A Bold Stroke for a Husband, More Ways Than One, A School for Greybeards, or, The Mourning Bride, The Fate of Sparta, or, The Rival Kings, A Day in Turkey, or, The Russian Slaves, and The Town Before You. None of these matched the success of her earlier plays.
In 1783, Thomas Cowley accepted a job with the British East India Company. He moved to India and left Hannah in London to raise their children; Thomas died there in 1797, never having returned to England.
Hannah Cowley had a less distinguished career as a poet, writing The Scottish Village, or Pitcairne Green in 1786, and The Siege of Acre: an Epic Poem in 1801. In the summer of 1787, under the pseudonym "Anna Matilda," she and the poet Robert Merry (writing as Della Crusca) began a poetic correspondence in the pages of the journal The World. Their poems were sentimental and flirtatious. At first each did not even know the other's identity; later they met and became part of a poetic movement called the Della Cruscans. Literary history has not been kind to Della Cruscan poetry, which was criticised as sloppy and emotional. Merry was the subject of a satirical poem, "The Baviad", written by a contemporary, William Gifford. Cowley's poetry was published as The Poetry of Anna Matilda [pseud.] Containing A Tale for Jealousy, The Funeral, Her Correspondence with Della Crusca [pseud.] and Several Other Poetical Pieces. To Which Are Added Recol
