A Traitor's Kiss: The Life of Richard Brinsley Sheridan

This is a wonderful biography of a fascinating and engaging personality. Sheridan is a fine poet and an honorable politician (a nearly impossible achievement in the eighteenth-century as it is today), a genuine wit, he was also one of the greatest playwrights in the London theater of his day. Sheridan was a man of fashion and society, but not a fop. He wrote clever, romantic comedies, liked to live on the edge and yet always held fast to his principles -- supporting the American colonists, for instance, in their struggle for independence -- while refusing to be bought at any price. He lived in grand style from the first moment that he arrived in London (despite having nothing but his wife's dowry), spending all of the money that he made as quickly as he earned it -- sometimes MORE quickly than he earned it. He was passionate about few women but appreciative of the beauty of many, and he was a devoted and caring father. (His poem "If a Daughter You Have" is a small gem.) When he came home one night to find his theater burning as a result of a fire (probably set by his enemies in parliament), he calmly sat and sipped some wine, explaining to shocked witnesses: "Surely a man can have a glass of wine by his own fire." Toward the end of his life, although he was burdened by crippling debts, he refused an offer of a large sum of money in compensation for his support offered by the American colonists. He explained that his support had been a matter of principle. Read this biography and anything by Sheridan himself.

It's enough to say that a major artist has met with a superb biographer and this happy marriage has produced a very moving and absorbing account of this great man's life. Thank you Mr O' Toole!

I was familiar with Sheridan from his theatrical comedies, plays that have become standard in the repertoire. I was dimly aware of his service in Parliament. I wasn't aware of his extensive involvement in the great political questions of the day, particularly the Irish questions, nor of his centrality in the great debates of the late 18th century--the American war for independence, the expanding power of the East India Company, and many others.The book covers all of this, but what elevates this bio from the typical is the author's focus on Sheridan's rhetoric--his use of language. The richness of wordplay, situation, and satire in his plays turns out to be just a special case of a characteristic lifestyle of thought and interaction. It's just splendid to read this sort of thing from an intelligent writer. The book gets you thinking, and there are points at which you may challenge the author's conclusions, but you're not going to find many biographies of this depth, thoroughness, and thoughtfulness. A great read!

Sheridan (1751-1816) is best known for a few plays, superficially comedies of manners and morals, mainly The Rivals and The School for Scandal. O'Toole's work explores beneath the surface of these and other literary works, showing them as the products of Sheridan's personal and political life. Widely praised in the English and American press, this biography portrays Sheridan as a passionate (and compassionate) politician. He was a major player in a struggle for various complicated and sometimes seemingly contradictory causes and parliamentary power in the era of the American Revolution, King George III's intermittent madness, the French Revolution, and troubles in the British empire. Sheridan is shown to be a humanitarian, and, less convincingly, an Irish patriot in the guise of an English politician who happened to be Irish by birth at a time when Ireland was at times openly rebellious toward England. The family heritage in Ireland was actually Protestant, but tolerant of Catholicism to the point of having Jacobite tendencies, i.e. favoring the return of the Stuart monarchy that had ended with James II in the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688. Sheridan's father, Thomas, was a man of the theatre, and also a scholar, concerned particularly with propriety in matters of language and spoken discourse. Richard was not his father's favorite and his mother, herself a writer, died while Richard was still a young boy. O'Toole's biography manages to relate the playwright's works to his family circumstances without indulging in psychological speculation. For example, the memorable character Mrs. Malaprop, in The Rivals, (immortalized by our word "malaprop" or "malapropism") is shown to be in part based on Thomas, who had pedantic tendencies. (Malaprops are best when they come from pretenders to perfection in language. An especially good one appeared a few years ago in The Smithsonian magazine when James J. Kilpatrick, a conservative political commentator and sometimes word policeman, referred to a mistake in diction as a "solipsism" instead of a "solecism".) The many portrayals of hypocrisy and venality in Sheridan's plays are well explained by reference to the politics and society of the period, but are timeless in their effectiveness. The book is most interesting in describing the realities of theatrical performances, whether the particulars are staging details, audience characteristics, or financial exigencies. But this is a political biography of a character whose political accomplishments and enlightened ideals outshine his well known literary works. Many of Sheridan's Irish contacts and English partisans in the intrigues within England in the years after 1789 were openly sympathetic to, or even allied with the French revolutionaries. Yet Sheridan was during this time a prominent member of the House of Commons and close to the Prince of Wales, later George IV. Some of his personal and political friends were tried as traitors during the peak of Sher