George Farquhar: A Migrant Life Reversed (Cultural Histories of Theatre and Performance)

George Farquhar (1677–1707) is one of the most successful and enduringly popular Restoration playwrights. His two masterpieces, The Recruiting Officer and The Beaux’ Stratagem, are still regularly performed today. Yet aspects of Farquhar’s biography, and in particular his Irish roots and family life, have remained obscure. This is the first study to treat Farquhar’s works as documents of migration and the fragmented identity that resulted. Told in reverse chronological order, beginning with Farquhar’s last and best-known works, it reveals previously undiscovered material about his life and connections. Born in Londonderry, Farquhar arrived in London at the end of the 1690s but struggled throughout his life to find acceptance in the English literary culture. David Roberts explores how Farquhar used comedy to negotiate his Anglo-Irish Protestant identity while perpetually being treated as an outsider. George Farquhar: A Migrant Life Reversed challenges traditional critical thinking on historiographic approaches to scholarly biography and offers a complex but highly readable account of the interpenetrating pasts, presents and futures of the migrant writer. "George Farquhar (1677-1707) is one of the most successful and enduringly popular of the English Restoration playwrights. His two masterpieces, The Recruiting Officer and The Beaux' Stratagem, are still regularly performed today. Yet little has been written regarding Farquhar's biography and his Irish roots. This is the first study to treat Farquhar's works as documents of migration and the fragmented identity that resulted. Told in reverse chronological order, beginning with Farquhar's last and best-known works, it reveals previously undiscovered material about his life and connections. Born in Dublin, Farquhar arrived in London at the end of the 1690s but struggled throughout his life to find acceptance in the English literary culture. David Roberts explores how Farquhar used comedy to negotiate his Anglo-Irish Protestant identity while perpetually being treated as an outsider. George Farquhar: A Migrant Life Reversed challenges the traditional critical thinking on historiographic approaches to scholarly biography and offers a complex but highly readable account of the interpenetrating pasts, presents and futures of the migrant writer." -- Provided by publisher Cover 1 Half-title 3 Title 7 Copyright 8 Contents 11 Acknowledgements 12 Introduction: A Brief Life Forwards 13 1. A Life Reversed 15 2. 1709: A Widow’s Pension 39 3. 1707: Deathbed Comedy 55 4. 1706: Military Comedy 77 5. 1704: In the Army 87 6. 1701: Moral George 101 7. 1700: The Irishman Abroad 121 8. 1698: Narratives of Arrival 131 9. 1696: Dear Bob 145 10. 1690: Farquhar Family History 155 Notes 173 Bibliography 212 Index 232