Colley Cibber’s

The Refusal

was first performed at Drury Lane on Tuesday, February 14, 1721. Prompted by the sudden burst of the South Sea Bubble in the summer, Cibber was certainly working on it in the autumn months of 1720, when, according to Helene Koon, word “leaked out and in an attempt to pre-empt the novelty Charles Rich gave his own adaptation of

The Female Vertuosos

(Thomas Wright, 1693) before Drury Lane could present Cibber’s” (1986: 100).

The London Stage

records Rich’s

No Fools Like Wits

was performed on Tuesday, January 10, 1721 at Lincoln’s Inn Fields. It ran for three nights with “the Prince present” on January 12. Cibber’s

The Refusal

ran for six successive nights until Monday, February 20, 1721. On February 27, Edmund Curll the bookseller advertised the…

3288 words

Citation: Carraro, Laura Favero. "The Refusal". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 16 September 2019 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=38963, accessed 03 December 2024.]

38963 The Refusal 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.