Tom Taylor
Tom Taylor (19 October 1817 – 12 July 1880) was an English
In addition to these vocations, Taylor began a theatre career and became best known as a playwright, with up to 100 plays staged during his career. Many were adaptations of French plays, but these and his original works cover a range from farce to melodrama. Most fell into neglect after Taylor's death, but Our American Cousin (1858), which achieved great success in the 19th century, remains famous as the piece that was being performed in the presence of Abraham Lincoln when he was assassinated in 1865.
Life and career
Early years
Taylor was born into a newly wealthy family at
Taylor left Cambridge in late 1844 and moved to London, where for the next two years he pursued three careers simultaneously. He was professor of English language and literature at
Writer
Taylor owed his fame and most of his income not to his academic, legal or government work, but to his writing. Soon after moving to London, he obtained remunerative work as a
Taylor also established himself as a playwright and eventually produced about 100 plays.[6] Between 1844 and 1846, the Lyceum Theatre staged at least seven of his plays, including extravanzas written with Albert Smith or Charles Kenney, and his first major success, the 1846 farce To Parents and Guardians. The Morning Post said of that piece, "The writing is admirable throughout – neat, natural and epigrammatic".[7] It was as a dramatist that Taylor made the most impression – his biographer in the Dictionary of National Biography (DNB) wrote that in writing plays Taylor found his true vocation. In thirty-five years he wrote more than seventy plays for the principal London theatres.[4]
A substantial portion of Taylor's prolific output consisted of adaptations from the French or collaborations with other playwrights, notably
Like his colleague W. S. Gilbert, Taylor believed that plays should be readable as well as actable; he followed Gilbert in having copies of his plays printed for public sale. Both authors did so at some risk, because it made matters easy for American pirates of their works in the days before international copyright protection. Taylor wrote, "I have no wish to screen myself from literary criticism behind the plea that my plays were meant to be acted. It seems to me that every drama submitted to the judgment of audiences should be prepared to encounter that of readers".[9]
Many of Taylor's plays were extremely popular,[6] and several survived into the 20th century, although most are largely forgotten today. His Our American Cousin (1858) is now remembered chiefly as the play Abraham Lincoln was attending when he was assassinated, but it was revived many times during the 19th century with great success. It became celebrated as a vehicle for the popular comic actor Edward Sothern, and after his death, his sons, Lytton and E. H. Sothern, took over the part in revivals.[10]
Personal life
Howes records that Taylor was described as "of middle height, bearded [with] a pugilistic jaw and eyes which glittered like steel". Known for his remarkable energy, he was a keen swimmer and rower, who rose daily at five or six and wrote for three hours before taking an hour's brisk walk from his house in Wandsworth to his Whitehall office.[1]
Some, like Ellen Terry, praised Taylor's kindness and generosity; others, including F. C. Burnand, found him obstinate and unforgiving.[1] Terry wrote of Taylor in her memoirs:
Most people know that Tom Taylor was one of the leading playwrights of the 'sixties as well as the dramatic critic of The Times, editor of Punch, and a distinguished Civil Servant, but to us he was more than this. He was an institution! I simply cannot remember when I did not know him. It is the Tom Taylors of the world who give children on the stage their splendid education. We never had any education in the strict sense of the word yet through the Taylors and others, we were educated.[11]
Terry's frequent stage partner, Henry Irving said that Taylor was an exception to the general rule that it was helpful, even though not essential, for a dramatist to be an actor to understand the techniques of stagecraft: "There is no dramatic author who more thoroughly understands his business".[12]
In 1855 Taylor married the composer, musician and artist
Taylor died suddenly at his home in 1880 at the age of 62 and is buried in Brompton Cemetery.[1] After his death, his widow retired to Coleshill, Buckinghamshire, where she died on 22 May 1905.[19]
Selected bibliography
- Valentine and Orson, 1844
- Whittington and his Cat, 1844
- Cinderella, 1844
- A Trip to Kissingen, 1844
- To Parents and Guardians, 1845
- Diogenes and his Lantern, 1849
- The Vicar of Wakefield, 1850
- The Philosopher's Stone, 1850
- Prince Dorus, 1850
- Our Clerks, 1852
- Wittikind and his Brothers, 1852
- Plot and Passion, 1853
- A Nice Firm, 1853
- Masks and Faces, 1854
- To Oblige Benson, 1854
- Two Loves and a Life, 1854
- Still Waters Run Deep, 1855
- The King's Rival, 1855
- Helping Hands, 1855
- Retribution, 1856
- Victims, 1857
- A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing, 1857
- An Unequal Match, 1857
- Our American Cousin, 1858
- Going to the Bad, 1858
- New Men and Old Acres, 1859
- A Tale of Two Cities, 1859
- Barefaced Impostors, 1859
- The Contested Election, 1859
- Nine Points of the Law, 1859
- The Overland Route, 1860
- Up at the Hills, 1860
- The Babes in the Wood, 1860
- The Ticket-of-leave Man, 1863
- Sense and Sensation, 1864
- Henry Dunbar, 1865
- The Sister's Penance, 1866
- The Fool's Revenge, 1869
- Mary Warner, 1869
- The Babes in the Wood, 1870
- Twixt Axe and Crown, 1870
- The Hidden Hand, 1870
- Joan of Arc, 1871
- Arkwright’s Wife, 1873
- Lady Clancarty, 1874
- Anne Boleyn, 1875
- Settling Day, 1877
- Source: Dictionary of National Biography.[4]
Notes
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Howes, Craig. "Taylor, Tom", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 3 January 2008 (subscription or UK public library membership required)
- ^ "Taylor, Tom (TLR836T)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ Profile of Taylor at the Turney site. Archived 18 February 2008 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b c d e f g "Taylor, Tom, Dictionary of National Biography archive, accessed 1 October 2018 (subscription required)
- ^ "Tom Taylor Esq.", The Morning Post, 8 April 1850, p. 6
- ^ a b "Tom Taylor", The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21) (Volume XIII. The Victorian Age, Part One. VIII. Nineteenth-Century Drama, § 10
- ^ "Lyceum Theatre", The Morning Post, 15 September 1846, p. 5
- ^ "The International Exhibition", The Times, 2 May 1871, reprinted at The Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, accessed 5 August 2017
- ^ Barrett, Daniel. "Play Publication, Readers, and the 'Decline' of Victorian Drama", Book History, Vol. 2 (1999), pp. 181 and 182
- ^ "Our American Cousin", The Era, 24 October 24, 1885, p. 8; and "Mr. E. H. Sothern", The Times, 30 October 1933, p. 17
- ^ Terry, p. 39
- ^ Quoted in Richards, p. 6
- ^ Aaron C Cohen. International Encyclopedia of Women Composers (1981), p. 33
- ^ "Tom Taylor", The Magazine of Art, Vol. 4 (1881), p. 68
- ^ Taylor, Tom (translator). Ballads and Songs of Brittany (1865), Internet Archive
- ^ "Porch House", Coleshill in Buckinghamshire, accessed 20 February 2023
- ^ "Laura Wilson Barker (1819–1905)", Royal Academy of Arts, accessed 19 February 2023
- ^ Rathbone, Jeanne. "Laura Wilson Barker", Damesnet, accessed 18 February 2019
- ^ Stratton, Stephen S. "Nicolo Paganini: His Life and Work" (2022)
Sources
- Richards, Jeffrey (2007). Sir Henry Irving. London: A C Black. ISBN 978-1-85285-591-8.
- Terry, Ellen (1982) [1900]. The Story of My Life. Woodbridge: Boydell. ISBN 978-0-85115-204-2.
External links
- Works by or about Tom Taylor at Wikisource
- Works by Tom Taylor at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Tom Taylor at Internet Archive
- Works by Tom Taylor at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Kent, William Charles Mark (1898). Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 55. London: Smith, Elder & Co. . In
- Lacy's Acting Edition of Victorian Plays
- New York Times obituary
- The Tom Taylor Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum