author
Thomas Baker
d. 1749
A little-known figure of the early 1700s, this English playwright also worked as a lawyer and left behind comedies that caught the changing mood of the London stage. His best-known play, Tunbridge-Walks, helped keep his name alive long after his own era had passed.
1 Audiobook
The Fine Lady's Airs (1709)
by Thomas Baker
About the author
Thomas Baker (c. 1680–1749) was an English dramatist and lawyer. Sources describe him as the son of a prominent London attorney, and he is also said to have been educated at Oxford, though details of his life are sparse.
He wrote for the stage in the early eighteenth century, when English comedy was shifting away from the boldness of Restoration drama toward a more restrained style. Among his plays, Tunbridge-Walks; or, The Yeoman of Kent is the one most often remembered, and it gave Baker his strongest place in theatre history.
Like many lesser-known writers of the period, he survives more through his work than through a full personal record. That air of mystery can make him especially interesting to modern readers: he stands at the edge of a lively theatrical world, still visible through the plays he left behind.