F. C. Burnand
Sir Francis Cowley Burnand (29 November 1836 – 21 April 1917), usually known as F. C. Burnand, was an English comic writer and prolific playwright, best known today as the librettist of Arthur Sullivan's opera Cox and Box.
The son of a prosperous family, he was educated at
By the 1870s, Burnand was generating a prodigious output of plays as well as comic pieces and illustrations for the humour magazine Punch. Among his 55-stage works during the decade was another frequently revived hit, Betsy (1879). For Punch, among other things, he wrote the popular column "Happy Thoughts", in which the narrator recorded the difficulties and distractions of everyday life. Also admired were his burlesques of other writers' works. Burnand was a contributor to Punch for 45 years and its editor from 1880 until 1906 and is credited with adding much to the popularity and prosperity of the magazine. His editorship of the original publication of The Diary of a Nobody by the brothers George and Weedon Grossmith was a high point of his tenure in 1888–89. Many of his articles were collected and published in book form. His stage successes in the 1890s included his English-language versions of two Edmond Audran operettas, titled La Cigale and Miss Decima (both in 1891). His last works included collaborations on pantomimes of Cinderella (1905) and Aladdin (1909).
Known generally for his genial wit and good humour, Burnand was nevertheless intensely envious of his contemporary W. S. Gilbert but was unable to emulate his rival's success as a comic opera librettist. In other forms of theatre Burnand was outstandingly successful, with his works receiving London runs of up to 550 performances and extensive tours in the British provinces and the US. He published several humorous books and memoirs and was knighted in 1902 for his work on Punch.
Life and career
Early years
Burnand was born in central London, the only child of Francis Burnand and his first wife Emma, née Cowley, who died when her son was eight days old.[1] Burnand senior, a stockbroker, was descended from an old Savoyard family, prominent in the silk trade; his wife was a descendant of the poet and dramatist Hannah Cowley.[2]
Burnand was educated at
Burnand graduated in 1858. His family had expected that he would study for the
1860s: start of writing career
In February 1860 Burnand had his first piece performed in the
Dido was followed by The Îles of St Tropez (1860), Fair Rosamond (1862) and The Deal Boatman (1863), among many others.
In 1866, Burnand adapted the popular farce Box and Cox as a comic opera, Cox and Box, with music by the young composer Arthur Sullivan. The piece was written for a private performance but was repeated and given its first public performance at the Adelphi Theatre in 1867.[15] The reviewer for Fun was W. S. Gilbert, who wrote
Mr Sullivan's music is, in many places, of too high a class for the grotesquely absurd plot to which it is wedded. It is very funny, here and there, and grand or graceful when it is not funny; but the grand and the graceful have, we think, too large a share of the honours to themselves."[16]
Cox and Box became a popular favourite and was frequently revived.[17] It was the only work not by Gilbert in the regular repertory of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company during the 20th century and is the only work of Burnand's still frequently staged.[18][19] Its success encouraged its authors to write the two-act opera, The Contrabandista (1867), revised and expanded as The Chieftain (1894), but it did not achieve much popularity in either version.[20]
More burlesques followed in 1868, including Fowl Play, or, A Story of Chicken Hazard and The Rise and Fall of Richard III, or, A New Front to an Old Dicky.
1870s: prolific author
Burnand's wife Cecilia died in 1870 at age 28, leaving him with seven small children. In 1874 Burnand married her widowed sister, Rosina (d. 1924), who was also an actress.[14][22] It was at that time illegal in England for a man to marry his dead wife's sister,[n 2] although such marriages made outside British jurisdiction were recognised as valid; accordingly the wedding ceremony was performed in continental Europe. There were two sons and four daughters of this marriage.[1]
Throughout the 1870s, Burnand maintained a prodigious output. For the stage he wrote 55 pieces, ranging from burlesques to pantomimes, farces and extravaganzas.[13] He was the sole author of most of them, but worked on a few with Thomas German Reed, J. L. Molloy, Henry Pottinger Stephens and even with H. J. Byron.[13] His stage pieces of the 1870s included Poll and Partner Joe (1871),[13] Penelope Anne (1871; a sequel to Cox and Box),[13] The Miller and His Man (1873; "a Christmas drawing room extravaganza" with songs by Sullivan),[23] Artful Cards (1877),[13] Proof (1878),[13] Dora and Diplunacy (1878, a burlesque of Clement Scott's Diplomacy, an adaptation of Sardou's Dora),[13] The Forty Thieves (1878; a charity collaboration among four playwrights, including Byron and Gilbert),[13] Our Club (1878)[13] and another frequently revived hit, Betsy (1879).[6][11] He provided a burlesque of Robbing Roy to the Gaiety Theatre in 1879.[24] Burnand's prolific writing came at some cost in quality. A biographer wrote that he "was a facile and slapdash writer. False rhymes and awkward rhythms occur frequently in his verse, and his favourite devices included puns, topical references and slang."[19]
Burnand also translated or adapted for the London stage several French operettas by Offenbach, Edmond Audran, Charles Lecocq and Robert Planquette.[6][19] At the same time as his busy theatrical career, he was a member of the staff of Punch under Lemon and his successors, Shirley Brooks and Tom Taylor, writing a regular stream of genial articles.[5] His best-known work for the magazine was the column "Happy Thoughts",[8] in which the narrator recorded the difficulties and distractions of everyday life. A. A. Milne considered it "one of the most popular series which has ever appeared in Punch"; alongside it, he rated as Burnand's best comic contributions his burlesques of other writers, such as "The New History of Sandford and Merton" (1872) and "Strapmore" by "Weeder" (1878).[5][n 3]
1880s: editor of Punch
The third editor of Punch, Tom Taylor, died in July 1880; the proprietors of the magazine appointed Burnand to succeed him.[8] In Milne's view the magazine's reputation increased considerably under Burnand:
It grew less intolerant of opinions with which it disagreed; it became more catholic in its appeal; it began to discard its air of a Family Joke and aspired to be the National Institution which it has since been proclaimed. Yet he always kept for it a note of irresponsibility.[1]
A later biographer, Jane Stedman, writes, "His predecessor, Tom Taylor, had allowed the paper to become heavy, but Burnand's rackety leadership brightened it." Burnand, who declared himself "hostile to no man's religion", banned Punch's previous anti-Catholicism, although he was unable to prevent some antisemitic jokes.[1]
One of Burnand's biggest successes, both in Punch and on stage, was satire of the
In 1884, Burnand wrote Paw Claudian, a burlesque of the 1883 costume (Byzantine) drama Claudian by Henry Herman and W. G. Wills, presented at
Later years
In 1890, Burnand wrote Captain Therèse, followed later that year by a very successful English version of Audran's operetta, La cigale et la fourmi (the grasshopper and the ant) retitled La Cigale, with additional music by Ivan Caryll.[35] In 1891, he produced an English adaptation of Audran's Miss Helyett, retitled as Miss Decima. Burnand's The Saucy Sally premiered in 1892, and Mrs Ponderbury's Past played in 1895. He was knighted by King Edward VII at Buckingham Palace in 1902, for his work on Punch.[36][37]
Burnand's 1897 comic opera,
Burnand's last stage works were a collaboration with J. Hickory Wood, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1905, on a pantomime of Cinderella, and he was partly responsible for a pantomime of Aladdin for the same theatre in 1909.[11] His later contributions to Punch became increasingly wordy and anecdotal, relying on far-fetched puns, but he was a good judge of talent, and under him the paper prospered.[6] Stedman rates as a high point of his editorship the publication of The Diary of a Nobody by the brothers George and Weedon Grossmith, which was soon turned into book form and has never been out of print.[1] He was reluctant to retire, but was persuaded to do so in 1906, and was succeeded by Owen Seaman.[1] In 1908, Burnand became the editor of The Catholic Who's Who, published by Burns & Oates.[42]
Burnand lived for much of his life in Ramsgate, Kent, on the south coast of England and was a member of the Garrick Club in London.[11] He had a very large circle of friends and colleagues who included William Makepeace Thackeray, Mark Lemon and most writers, dramatists and actors of the day.[6] George Grossmith wrote:
I think Frank Burnand is the most amusing man to meet. He is brimful of good humour. He will fire off joke after joke, and chaff you out of your life if he gets a chance. His chaff is always good-tempered. No one minds being chaffed by Burnand. I will not sing a song when he is in the room if I can possibly help it. He will sit in front of me at the piano, and either stare with a pained and puzzled look during my comic song, or he will laugh in the wrong places, or, what is worse still, take out his pocket-handkerchief and weep."[43]
After a winter of bronchitis, Burnand died in 1917 at his home in Ramsgate, at the age of 80. He was buried in the cemetery at St Augustine's Abbey church in Ramsgate.[1]
Books
Burnand's best-known book, Happy Thoughts, was originally published in Punch in 1863–64 and frequently reprinted. This was followed by My Time and What I've Done with It (1874); Personal Reminiscences of the A.D.C., Cambridge, (1880); The Incomplete Angler (1887); Very Much Abroad (1890); Rather at Sea (1890); Quite at Home (1890); The Real Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1893); Records and Reminiscences, (1904); and The Fox's Frolic: or, a day with the topsy turvy hunt, illustrated by Harry B. Neilson (1917).
Notes and references
- Notes
- ^ W. S. Gilbert, later Burnand's rival as a comic playwright, made the opposite journey, severing his connection with Punch in favour of Fun when Lemon turned down one of Gilbert's Bab Ballads.[10]
- ^ This became legal in 1907 under the Deceased Wife's Sister's Marriage Act 1907.
- ^ These parodied The History of Sandford and Merton by Thomas Day, a moralising work for children; and Strathmore, a novel by Ouida, in his burlesque of which Burnand parodied two genres: novels of high society and Italian peasant stories.[25] Other authors whom he satirised included Victor Hugo, presented in Punch as "Fictor Nogo".[26]
- References
- ^ doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/32183 (subscription or UK public library membershiprequired)
- ^ a b c d e "Burnand, Sir Francis Cowley", Who Was Who, online edition, Oxford University Press, 2014, accessed 7 July 2014
- ^ Burnand, pp. 7–17
- ^ Burnand, pp. 86–87
- ^ a b c d e Milne, A. A. "Burnand, Sir Francis Cowley (1836–1917)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Archive, Oxford University Press, 1927, accessed 8 June 2014 (subscription or UK public library membership required)
- ^ a b c d e f "Death of Sir Francis Burnand", The Times, 23 April 1917, p. 11
- ^ Nicoll, p. 288
- ^ a b c Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 4 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 848.
- ^ Williams, Montagu Stephen; Burnand, F. C. (Francis Cowley) (1860). "B. B. : an original farce in one act". Samuel French, London. Other titles are The Turkish Bath (c. 1861) and Easy Shaving (1863).
- ^ "Two Great English Humorists – Gilbert and Burnand", The Times, 18 November 1936, p. 14
- ^ a b c d e Parker, p. 84
- ^ Stephens, p. 61
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Nicoll, pp. 289–291
- ^ a b "The Morning Post", Black-Eyed Susan; or, the Little Bill that Was Taken Up, review in The Morning Post, digitized by The British Library (2013), p. 51
- ^ Lamb, Andrew. "Cox and Box" – A Postscript", The Gilbert & Sullivan Journal, 1968, volume IX, 7, pp.132–133; and "Adelphi Theatre", The Times, 13 May 1867, p. 12
- ^ Young, p. 63
- ^ "Royal Gallery of Illustration", The Times, 30 March 1869, p. 10 "The Theatres", The Times, 15 July 1880, p. 6; "Savoy Theatre", The Times, 11 March 1895, p. 12; and "The Theatres", The Times, 25 August 1921, p. 6
- ^ Rollins and Witts, pp. 15, 140–186 and xxv–xxvi; and "Cox and Box on tour", Grosvenor Light Opera Company, accessed 8 July 2014
- ^ a b c Fredric Woodbridge Wilson. "Burnand, Sir Francis Cowley", Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press, accessed 8 July 2014 (subscription required)
- ^ Jacobs, p. 62; and Rollins and Witts, p. 15
- ^ Nicoll, p. 289
- The Odyssey, Patient Penelope; or, The Return of Ulysses.
- ^ Howarth, Paul. The Miller and His Man, The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, accessed 2 January 2013
- ^ "Theatrical Humour in the Seventies", The Times, 20 February 1914, p. 9
- ^ Lee, p. 97
- ^ Spielmann, p. 365
- ^ Burnand, 2nd Edition, vol. 2, p. 165
- ^ Rollins and Witts, p. 8
- ^ Wilde, p. 109, letter to George Grossmith, April 1881
- ^ "Gaiety Theatre", The Times, 9 October 1883, p. 9
- ^ "At the Play", The Observer, 14 October 1883, p. 7; and "Theatres", The Times', 8 December 1883, p. 8
- The Athenaeum: A Journal, 16 August 1884, p. 220
- ^ Moss, Simon. Programme and description of 1894 production, Gilbert & Sullivan, a selling exhibition of memorabilia, Archive: Other items, accessed 9 July 2014
- ^ Chandler, David. "Pickwick by Burnand & Solomon and Cups and Saucers by George Grossmith" Archived 13 October 2017 at the Wayback Machine, Retrospect Opera, 2016, accessed 13 October 2017
- ^ "Lyric Theatre", The Times, 10 October 1890, p. 7
- ^ "The Coronation Honours". The Times. No. 36804. London. 26 June 1902. p. 5.
- ^ "No. 27494". The London Gazette. 11 November 1902. p. 7165.
- ^ "His Majesty" [dead link], Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, accessed 9 July 2014
- ^ "Savoy Theatre", The Times, 22 February 1897, p. 7
- ^ Rollins and Witts, pp. 15–16
- ^ Furniss, Harry. The Two Pins Club (1925), excerpted in The Gilbert Society Journal, pp. 315–316, vol. 1, no. 10, Spring 1999
- ^ ""Burns & Oates", The Universe, 8 January 1909, accessed 17 July 2017
- ^ Grossmith, Ch. 8
Sources
- Burnand, F C (1880). The "A.D.C.", being personal reminiscences of the University Amateur Dramatic Club, Cambridge. London: Chapman and Hall. OCLC 9281323.
- Grossmith, George (1888). A Society Clown: Reminiscences. Bristol and London: Arrowsmith. OCLC 8060335.
- Lee, Elizabeth (1914). Ouida: a memoir. London: Unwin. OCLC 3812858.
- OCLC 217979088.
- Parker, John, comp. & ed. (1914). Who's Who in the Theatre (second ed.). London: Pitman.
{{cite book}}
:|first=
has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Rollins, Cyril; R John Witts (1961). The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in Gilbert and Sullivan Operas. London: Michael Joseph. OCLC 1317843.
- Spielmann, M H (1895). The History of Punch. London, Paris and Melbourne: Cassell. OCLC 1925026.
- Wilde, Oscar; Merlin Holland and )
- ISBN 0-460-03934-2.
External links
- Works by F. C. Burnand at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about F. C. Burnand at Internet Archive
- Profile of Burnand
- F. C. Burnand letters and memoranda, 1873–1907, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts