Inchbald

Inchbald, Mrs. Elizabeth, the daughter of a farmer named Simpson, was born at Standingtield, Essex, in 1753. Her father died when she was eight, and though poverty prevented her receiving a regular education, she and her sisters cultivated of their own accord literary tastes and domestic sympathies. In 1772 she came to London secretly, and tried to get a theatrical engagement in spite of an impediment in her speech. Mr. Inchbald, an actor at Drury Lane, made her his wife, and for six years they played together in the provinces. On his death, in 1778, she remained for a time on the stage, but her success as a dramatist enabled her to retire in 1789. Among her successful plays were Wives as They Were and Maids as They Are, The Married Man, The Wedding Bay, Lovers' Vows, and The Midnight Hour. Her two romances, A Simple Story and Nature and Art, still find readers, and her British Theatre, Modern Theatre, and Collection of Farces are standard compilations. She destroyed her autobiography before her death, but Boaden's Memoirs give a full account of her life, which ended in 1821.