John Crowne - Works

Works

  • The History of Charles the Eighth of France, or The Invasion of Naples by the French (1672) was dedicated to Rochester. In Timon, generally supposed to have been written by the earl, a line from this piece--"whilst sporting waves smil'd on the rising sun "--was held up to ridicule
  • The Country Wit: A Comedy (acted 1675, pr. 1693), derived in part from Molière's Le Sicilien, ou l'Amour peintre, is remembered for the leading character, Sir Mannerly Shallow
  • The Ambitious Statesman, or The Loyal Favourite (1679), one of the most extravagant of his heroic efforts, deals with the history of Bernard d'Armagnac, Constable of France, after the battle of Agincourt
  • Thyestes, A Tragedy (1681), spares none of the horrors of the Senecan tragedy, although an incongruous love story is interpolated
  • The Misery of Civil War (1681), adapted from William Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 2 and Henry VI, Part 3
  • City Politics (1683)
  • Sir Courtly Nice, or It Cannot Be (1685), a comedy
  • Darius, King of Persia (1688), a tragedy
  • Regulus (acted 1692, pr. 1694)*The English Frier; or The Town Sparks (acted 1689, pr. 1690), perhaps suggested by Molière's Tartuffe, ridicules the court Catholics, and in Father Finical caricatures Father Edward Petre.
  • The Married Beau; or The Curious Impertinent (1694), is based on the Curioso Impertinente in Don Quixote.
  • Caligula (1698)

He also produced a version of Racine's Andromaque, and an unsuccessful comedy, Justice Busy.

See The Dramatic Works of John Crowne (4 vols., 1873), edited by James Maidment and W. H. Logan for the Dramatists of the Restoration.

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