{"product_id":"david-garrick-a-critical-biography-9780809309313","title":"David Garrick: A Critical Biography","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe life of this actor  manager  playwright  and eighteenth-century gentleman is here refracted through the volurninous correspondence and analyses of roles  plays  and performances in this  no doubt final  biography of David Garrick.  As the direct result of modern scholarship accessible only since the 1960s  it is now possible to appraise fully the life of this remarkable person who was born in Lichfield 19February 1717 a childhood friend of Samuel Johnson  who became the greatest English theatrical luminary who ever lived  and who when he died 20 January 1779was mourned by the nation and eulogized by Dr. Johnson as one whose death eclipsed the gaiety of nations. For twenty-nine years (17471776) Garrick managed Drury Lane theatre  caring passionately for its well-being. His own acting set the pace for the performances  his discipline carried it on  and his theatrical innovations attracted the audiences on which the lives  hopes  and families of some 140actors  actresses  singers  dancers  and others depended. In addition  he wrote  adapted  or altered some 49 plays and wrote nearly 100 prologues. What emerges from this big  new critical biography is a fully drawn portrait of an eighteenth-century gentleman  with a wide range of acquaintances  elegant socially  morally  and personally  and an engaging conversationalist with and respecter of women of mark and with his closest friends. He was also  as the evidence now shows  the solid link with his own age and the great dramatic artists of the past  from the Restoration playwrights to Massinger  Jonson  Shakespeare  and early English dramatists.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67924581351477,"sku":"ByrdShop_0809309319","price":91.45,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780809309313.jpg?v=1794137380","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/david-garrick-a-critical-biography-9780809309313","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}