author
Colley Cibber
1671–1757
A lively man of the early English stage, he helped shape Restoration and 18th-century theatre as an actor, playwright, manager, and later Poet Laureate. His witty, often gossipy memoir remains one of the most enjoyable firsthand guides to the theater world he lived in.
3 Audiobooks
About the author
Born in London in 1671, Colley Cibber built a long career on the stage as an actor, playwright, and theater manager. He became closely associated with Drury Lane and was one of the figures who helped define the actor-manager tradition in English theater.
He is especially remembered for Love’s Last Shift (1696), a hugely successful play often linked with the rise of sentimental comedy. Cibber wrote and adapted many plays for performance, and his gifts as a comic performer made him a well-known public figure in his own lifetime.
Today, many readers know him best for An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber (1740), a vivid memoir that mixes self-defense, anecdote, and theater history. Named Poet Laureate in 1730, he was also a famous target of Alexander Pope, which helped keep his name in literary history long after his final curtain.