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 R…
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Citation: Carraro, Laura Favero. "The Refusal". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 16 September 2019 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=38963, accessed 21 November 2024.]
