fadedpage.com

FP now includes 8231 eBooks in its collection.

  main page


Wild Oats

Cover Image

Book Details

Title:Wild Oats
Author:
O'Keeffe, John   
(8 of 8 for author by title)
The Prisoner at Large
Published:   1793
Publisher:Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orme
Tags:comedy, drama, fiction
Description:[No description available. Suggest one here.]
Downloads:97
Pages:55 Info

Author Bio for O'Keeffe, John

Author Image

John O'Keeffe (24 June 1747—4 February 1833) was an Irish actor and dramatist. He wrote a number of farces, amusing dramatic pieces and librettos for pasticcio operas, many of which had great success. Among these are Tony Lumpkin in Town (1778), Love in a Camp (1786), and Omai (1785), an account of the voyages of the Tahitian explorer Omai, and Wild Oats (1791).

In 1777, O'Keeffe moved to London. The following year he wrote Tony Lumpkin in Town, a sequel to Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer, and sent it to the manager of the Haymarket Theatre. The play was successfully produced, and O'Keeffe regularly wrote for the Haymarket thereafter. In 1782 O'Keeffe had his two children sent abroad to France to deny access to them by their mother. His son did well but his daughter suffered in convent schools.

Between 1782 and 1796, O'Keeffe wrote around 28 plays and librettos for comic operas. The Poor Soldier (1783), a comic opera with libretto by O'Keeffe and music by William Shield, was a farce about the lives of British soldiers returning home after the American War of Independence. O'Keeffe also wrote The Son-in-Law, Agreeable Surprise which includes the lyrical poem Amo, Amas, and The Castle of Andalusia.

O'Keeffe had problems with his eyes ever since he had fallen into the River Liffey in his youth. From the mid-1770s, O'Keeffe increasingly lost his sight, and from 1781 his plays had to be dictated by him. In spite of this he was a prolific writer and was the most produced playwright in London in the last quarter of the 18th century. O'Keeffe contributed many Irish folksongs to the musical scores by Samuel Arnold and Shield such as I am a Friar of Orders Grey and The Thorn are still popular. For many of these songs, the comic operas are the earliest source. From 1788 his adolescent daughter Adelaide wrote for him. She was his amanuensis and eventual carer until he died. She also took work and became a writer in her own right.

In 1800, a benefit performance was staged for him at Covent Garden. In 1826, O'Keeffe wrote his memoirs, which covered his life experiences and various interactions with the leading artistic figures of his day. The memoirs were dictated to his daughter Adelaide who oversaw their publication. However, much of the information in his memoir is not accurate. In time Adelaide would write her memories of him. The same year he was awarded a pension by George IV. He died in 1833 in Southampton and was buried there.--Wikipedia.

Available Formats

UTF-8 text   20120303.txt
HTML20120303.html
Epub20120303.epubIf you cannot open a .mobi file on your mobile device, please use .epub with an appropriate eReader.
Mobi/Kindle20120303.mobiInfoNot all Kindles or Kindle apps open all .mobi files.
PDF (tablet)20120303-a5.pdf
HTML Zip20120303-h.zip

Kindle Direct (New, Experimental)

Send this book direct to your kindle via email. We need your Send-to-Kindle Email address, which can be found by looking in your Kindle device’s Settings page. All kindle email addresses will end in @kindle.com. Note you must add our email server’s address, [email protected], to your Amazon account’s Approved E-mail list. This list may be found on your Amazon account: Your AccountManage Your Content and DevicesPreferencesPersonal Document SettingsApproved Personal Document E-mail ListAdd a new approved e-mail address.

Send to Kindle Email Address:

This book is in the public domain in Canada, and is made available to you DRM-free. You may do whatever you like with this book, but mostly we hope you will read it.

Here at FadedPage and our companion site Distributed Proofreaders Canada, we pride ourselves on producing the best ebooks you can find. Please tell us about any errors you have found in this book, or in the information on this page about this book.