SHERIDAN OF DRURY LANE
By
Period and protagonist presented fully with vivacity and vitality. A lively and high-colored portrait of a meteoric man in a meteoric period, -- Sheridan, dramatist and politician. Born in an era of license and dandyism, of extreme gentility side by side with coarseness and debauchery, Sheridan witnessed and was broken by this aristocratic merry-go-round. He was a brilliant figure, with a quixotic sense of honor, a love of foolery, an infectious gaiety, and an unfortunate disregard of such mundane things as debts. His elopement with the scandal rouser, Elizabeth Linley, provoked a cause celebre. Then he became an overnight success with The Rivals and School for Scandal. As MP, he was the most feted orator of his day in his stand on the Hastings trial -- and then went on the political skids. Eventually, Fortune's darling died in filth and poverty in a tenement. Good reading, of its kind.