Gerard Langbaine

Born in Oxford on 15 July 1656, Gerard Langbaine was an English dramatic biographer and critic. He was the younger son of Gerard Langbaine the elder, a scholar and Provost of Queen’s College, Oxford.

Langbaine is remembered above all for An Account of the English Dramatic Poets (1691), an early reference work that brought together lives and comments on playwrights who had written in English. It is often noted as the earliest book to offer both biographical and critical information on writers of English Renaissance drama.

He died on 23 June 1692, still a relatively young man, but his reputation has lasted because of the care he took in documenting earlier dramatists. For readers interested in the theater world behind Shakespeare and his contemporaries, Langbaine remains an important and surprisingly readable guide.