Author

George Colman, the Younger was an English playwright and theatre manager born on October 21, 1762, and died on October 17, 1836, at the age of 73. He was the son of George Colman, the Elder. He wrote many comic operas, farces, melodramas, and sentimental comedies that were huge successes in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. When he moved to King’s College in 1781 because his father did not like his conduct in Christ-Oxford, he wrote a poem and a farce called The Female Dramatist and gave it to his father, who published it anonymously in 1782 in the Haymarket Theatre. Disappointed, he wrote another farce, performed in London in 1784. His first acknowledged play, Two to One, a musical Comedy, (1784) was a huge success. He became a student at Lincoln’s Inn and during his time there wrote a musical comedy called A Turk or No Turk, acted in 1785. It was not very popular. Colman, the Elder became paralyzed, and Colman, the Younger had to write to make a living rather than write for fun. His famous opera, Inkle and Yarikowas, was first performed in theatres on August 11, 1787. His next work was a comedy, Ways and Means, of which the prologue created much rage amongst newspapers. Colman, the Elder’s sickness got worse, and Colman, the Younger took over the Haymarket Theatre. He produced approx. 20 works mostly plays, including New Hay at the Old Market, The Mountaineers (1795) which was quite popular, The Iron Chest(1795) based on Godwin’s novel Caleb Williams in Drury-Lane Theatre, the Iron Chest, which also became very popular, one of his best comedies, The Heir a Law (1797), and a drama similar to the Blue Beard called Feudal Times (1799).