author
Horace C. Dale
1854–1907
Best known for lively late-19th-century stage dramas, this American playwright wrote fast-moving popular entertainments built for performance as much as for reading. His surviving works suggest a writer drawn to comedy-drama, strong theatrical situations, and the practical details of staging a show.
1 Audiobook
The Deacon: An Original Comedy Drama in Five Acts
by Horace C. Dale
About the author
Horace C. Dale was an American playwright active around the turn of the 20th century. Public-domain and library records connect him with plays including The Deacon, Strife, The Steel King, Breaking His Bonds, and Imogene; or, The Witch's Secret.
The Deacon is the easiest of his works to find today, thanks to Project Gutenberg, and it shows the kind of writing he was known for: a full-length comedy-drama designed for the stage, complete with cast list, plot summary, costumes, scene details, and stage business. That practical, performance-first style suggests he wrote for working theaters and amateur companies as well as readers.
Reliable biographical information about Dale himself appears to be limited online. The dates 1854–1907 are widely associated with him in catalog and genealogy-style records, but because detailed scholarly biographies are scarce, it is safest to remember him chiefly through the plays he left behind and the window they offer into popular American theater of his era.