John Tobin (28 January 1770 – 7 December 1804) was a British playwright , who was for most of his life unsuccessful, but in the year of his death made a hit with The Honey Moon . Other plays were The Curfew and The School for Authors .
9-582: The Honey Moon is a play by John Tobin . It was influenced by Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew and performed throughout the 19th century. The first performance of the play was at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane , on 31 January 1805. Robert William Elliston played Aranza, with Miss Duncan (Maria Rebecca Davison) as Juliana. It opened in Edinburgh on 14 November 1809, with Henry Siddons playing
18-644: A solicitor in Lincoln's Inn , and, some ten years later, on his employer's death without a successor, he took over the practice in partnership with three other clerks in the office. Dissensions arose, and the arrangement broke down. Tobin eventually entered a new firm. From 1789, Tobin had devoted time to dramatic composition. He imitated Richard Brinsley Sheridan , the Elizabethans, and Gay or Foote . Tobin approached managers thirteen times with different pieces without success. One of them, The Faro Table ,
27-567: A regime to reform her "proud spirit". When she submits to his will, he reveals his true identity and installs her in her rightful place in his palace. John Tobin (dramatist) Tobin was born in Salisbury , the son of James Tobin , a merchant, and his wife, born Webbe, the daughter of a rich West India sugar planter. George Tobin was his elder brother. Another brother, James Webbe Tobin (died 1814), an acquaintance of Charles Lamb and Samuel Taylor Coleridge , went to Nevis . About 1775
36-576: A romantic play in blank verse called 'The Honey Moon,' to the management at Drury Lane (it had failed to win acceptance at Covent Garden), he left his rooms near the Temple and went for his health to Cornwall . He then heard that "The Honey Moon" had been accepted; but in the meantime symptoms of consumption had manifested themselves. He was told that to save his life he must winter in the West Indies. He set sail accordingly on 7 December 1804, but died
45-519: The Duke and his wife Harriet Siddons as Juliana. It was revived at Drury Lane on 30 June 1827, with James Warde as the Duke and Frances Eleanor Jarman as his wife. The play was set in Spain in the early 17th century. The Duke of Aranza, pretending to be a peasant who has tricked his new bride, Juliana, into marriage, takes her to their supposed new home, a modest country cottage. There he subjects her to
54-576: The English stage for twenty years. Hazlitt thought the plot owed much to the Taming of the Shrew ; John Genest detected reminiscences of Massinger and other Elizabethans. Tobin excelled at light comedies and stage lyrics. After his early death, his rejected pieces were sought after by managers. Tobin's works, all posthumously published, were: Several of Tobin's unpublished dramas were published in one volume in 1820; among them 'The Gypsy of Madrid,' after
63-509: The father set out with his wife to Nevis in the West Indies. The children were left behind, and John was placed for a while under the care of Dr. Richard Mant, the father of Richard Mant the bishop, at Southampton . After the American War of Independence , James Tobin having returned to England and settled at Redland , near Bristol , John was sent to Bristol Grammar School under Dr. Charles Lee. In 1787 he left Bristol to be articled to
72-404: The first day out. The ship put back, and he was buried in the little churchyard of Cove, near Cork, where the remains of Charles Wolfe , author of the "Burial of Sir John Moore", were laid nineteen years later. Tobin was unmarried. The Honey Moon was given at Drury Lane on 31 January 1805, with Elliston and Bannister in the leading rôles, and proved a decided success. It remained a favourite on
81-505: Was provisionally accepted by Sheridan, but then rejected. The manager of Drury Lane dallied in a similar manner with his picturesque drama "The Curfew". In 1800 his "School for Authors", which afterwards achieved success, was rejected, and it was not until April 1803 that he (due to the good opinion of Joseph Shepherd Munden ) saw a piece of his own on the boards, a farce, "All's Fair in Love". In 1804, having submitted his fourteenth production,
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