Jack E. DeRochi is associate professor of English at Winthrop University. He has published several articles on late eighteenth-century drama and satire in such publications as Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Research and Studies in American Humor. His essay on the emergence of the masculine gothic was included in Prologues, Epilogues, Curtain-Raisers and Afterpieces: The Rest of the Eighteenth-Century London Stage (2007).Daniel J. Ennis is professor of English at Coastal Carolina University. He is the author of Enter the Press-Gang: Representations of Naval Impressment in Eighteenth-Century British Literature (2002) and edited, with Judith B. Slagle, a collection of essays entitled Prologues, Epilogues, Curtain-Raisers and Afterpieces: The Rest of the Eighteenth-Century London Stage (2007). He has published essays on John Dryden, Christopher Smart and Lord Byron among others.

• Illustrations AcknowledgmentsIntroductionJack E. DeRochi and Daniel J. EnnisOne: The Many Lives of Richard Brinsley SheridanJack E. DeRochi Two: Sheridan’s Early StyleRobert JonesThree: The Literary Origins of Sir Lucius O’TriggerDavid HaleyFour: Reflections upon Maintaining a Competitive Edge: The Duenna and her Peers at Drury Lane Mita ChoudhuryFive: Schools Beyond Scandal, 1776-1800 Emily FriedmanSix: The Rule of Scandal: Sheridan in the Age of Wilde and Shaw John VanceSeven: Naumachia and the Structure of The Critic Daniel J. EnnisEight: The Lees and Sheridan: An Unexamined Connection Steven GoresNine: Sheridan’s Courtroom Dramas: The Impeachment of Warren Hastings and the Trial of the Bounty MutineersGlynis RidleyTen: Pizarro’s Spectacular Dialectics: Sheridan’s Bridge to the Cosmopolitical Future Daniel O’QuinnEleven: Sheridan and WomenMarianna D’EzioTwelve: Caricaturing Sheridan David Francis TaylorBibliography Index About the Contributors

Transformative figures in their own right, the editors effectively update the enigmatic impresario for a current-day scholarly audience. The strength of DeRochi and Ennis’ collection resides in the treatment of its principal subject as a dynamic and complex participant in the social, political, and artistic discourses of the eighteenth century. . .DeRochi and Ennis bring together discrete critical voices, creating a holistic portrait of Sheridan as poet, playwright, critic, orator, and polemicist. In its desire to bring Sheridan into the twenty-first century, the collection imitates its principal subject, whose ability to transform himself with the changing times is dramatically and decisively detailed in these pages. . . .the collection is astoundingly great.