Hannah Cowley

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HC , who is said to have become a dramatist by accident and who probably persevered out of necessity, achieved in time great stage success during the late eighteenth century. She was well acquainted with the plays of her female predecessors, and often made use of them. She also wrote poetry, and may possibly have written a novel.
Print of the young Hannah Cowley. She sits on a chair in front of a heavy curtain pulled back. Her body is turned to her right, while she looks to the left in semi-profile. She holds a book on her lap, and wears a gown with short sleeves and low neckline, and long gloves. Her hair is styled in a mass of curls on her head and falling down her back.

Milestones

14 March 1743
Hannah Parkhouse (later HC ) was born at Tiverton in Devon.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/, http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
15 February 1776
HC 's first play, the comedy The Runaway, opened at Drury Lane , as the only new mainpiece of David Garrick 's final season; it had the successful run of seventeen nights.
The London Stage 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1960–1968.
4: 1952
Link, Frederick M., and Hannah Cowley. “Introduction”. The Plays of Hannah Cowley, Vol.
1
, Garland, 1979, p. v - xlxx.
vii, x
22 February 1780
HC had her first great hit when her comedy The Belle's Stratagem opened at Covent Garden .
The London Stage 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1960–1968.
5: 319
11 March 1809
HC died at Tiverton in Devon, of a liver complaint: she had been planting flowers the day before she died.
Cowley, Hannah. The Works of Mrs. Cowley: Dramas and Poems. Wilkie and Robinson, 1813.
1: xx

Biography

Birth and Family

14 March 1743
Hannah Parkhouse (later HC ) was born at Tiverton in Devon.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/, http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

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