This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1716.
Mary Kent was an English actress, whose career lasted from 1692 to 1718. Her dates of birth and death are not known. She was the wife of Drury Lane actor Thomas Kent.
Mary Davys (1674?–1732) was an Irish novelist and playwright.
The Constant Couple is a 1699 play by the Irish writer George Farquhar. It is part of the Restoration comedy tradition, and is often described as a sentimental comedy. It marked the first major success of Farquhar's career. A series of comic misunderstandings are triggered when three rivals vie for the hand of the wealthy heiress Lady Lurewell.
The Platonick Lady is a 1706 comedy play by the British writer Susanna Centlivre. Staged at the Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket in November 1706, it was published the following year and is sometimes dated as 1707. In the play's prologue the author defended the right of woman to write plays. The plot revolves around the question of platonic friendship.
The Wife of Bath is a 1713 comedy play by the British writer John Gay. It was inspired by The Wife of Bath's Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer. The play marked a conscious switch by Gay towards an apolitical and distant past, after his contemporary work The Mohocks had faced controversy and censorship the previous year. Robert Wilks, a celebrated actor and manager of the Drury Lane Theatre, appeared as Chaucer. The title role of the wife was played by Margaret Bicknell with Mary Porter as Myrtilla and the cast rounded out by William Bullock, Lacy Ryan, Christopher Bullock, William Pinkethman, Susanna Mountfort and Henry Norris.
The Modish Husband is a 1702 comedy play by the English writer William Burnaby. It is in the Restoration-style comedy of manners.
The Fair Example, or the Modish Citizen is a 1703 comedy play by the English writer Richard Estcourt, originally staged at the Drury Lane Theatre. It was part of a growing trend of plays to feature a plot of an honest wife reforming her rakish husband along with Sir Harry Wildair, As You Find It, The Wife's Relief and The Modish Couple. It is a reworking of the 1693 French play Les Bourgeoises à la Mode by Florent Carton Dancourt. In 1705 a separate English adaptation of the French work John Vanbrugh's The Confederacy appeared at the rival Queen's Theatre in the Haymarket.
The Wife's Relief, or, The Husband's Cure is a 1711 comedy play by the British writer Charles Johnson. The plot revolves around a virtuous wife who tries to mend her husband's rakish ways.
Love's Contrivance is a 1703 comedy play by the English writer Susanna Centlivre. The cast featured Robert Wilks as Bellmie, Anne Oldfield as Belliza, William Bullock as Selfwill, Benjamin Johnson as Sir Toby Doubtful and Jane Rogers as Lucinda.
Christopher Bullock (1690–1722) was a British stage actor and dramatist.
The Traitor is a tragedy published anonymously in 1718 and commonly attributed to the British writer and actor Christopher Bullock. It is a revised version of the 1631 play of the same title by James Shirley. It was Bullock's only effort to write tragedy, as his other works were all farces.
Woman Is a Riddle is a 1716 comedy play by the British actor Christopher Bullock. Sometimes its title is written as A Woman Is a Riddle.
The Chimera is a 1721 comedy play by the British writer Thomas Odell.
She Would and She Would Not is a 1702 comedy play by the English actor-writer Colley Cibber.
The Fine Lady's Airs is a 1708 comedy play by the British writer Thomas Baker.
The Doating Lovers: Or, the Libertine Tam'd is a 1715 comedy play by the Irish writer Newburgh Hamilton.
The Cobbler of Preston is a 1716 comedy play by Christopher Bullock, although a separate play of the same title was written by Charles Johnson the same year. A one-act afterpiece is the origin of the phrase "Tis impossible to be sure of anything but Death and Taxes". In the preface to the published version Bullock suggested that he had begun writing the play just four days before its premiere. It takes inspiration from The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare and is set in Preston, Lancashire. The town had recently been scene of fighting during the 1715 Jacobite Rebellion at the Battle of Preston. Bullock's play does not overtly reference the rebellion, but has undertones supportive of the Hanoverian Dynasty.
The Double Gallant is a 1707 comedy play by the British writer Colley Cibber.
The Lying Lover; Or, The Lady's Friendship is a 1703 comedy play by the Irish writer Richard Steele. It was his second play, written while he was an army office doing garrison duty in Harwich during the War of the Spanish Succession. It is described as being both a restoration comedy and a sentimental comedy, and marked the transition between the two.
