John Gay, Three Hours After Marriage

Ian Gordon (Anglia Ruskin University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.05: English Writing and Culture from the Glorious Revolution to the French Revolution, 1689-1789.
Vol. editors: Paul Baines (University of Liverpool), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Pat Rogers (University of South Florida), Nicholas Seager (University of Keele)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1717

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Burlesque
Comedy
Farce
Play

Resources

Three Hours After Marriage was the fourth play Gay wrote and the second, after The What D'Ye Call It (see separate entry), to meet with any significant degree of success, playing to packed houses for seven successive nights, the largest number of consecutive performances at Drury Lane that season, after its first performance on 16 January 1717. It then ran into critical hostility for its alleged obscenity and vindictiveness and was withdrawn by the theatre's management virtually to disappear from the stage for almost 280 years until the Royal Shakespeare Company's revival at Stratford in May 1996. The play grew out of the meetings of the Scriblerus Club (Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Dr John Arbuthnot, Thomas Parnell …

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1861 words

Citation: Gordon, Ian. "Three Hours After Marriage". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 June 2003 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=8322, accessed 24 November 2024.]

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