Trained as an engraver in England under William Reynolds, Bouchardy turned to playwriting, and produced many popular melodramas full of deception, disguise, double-crossing, violence, and convoluted, labyrinthine plots often taking place in labyrinthine settings.
This story was written on the cusp of Bouchardy's switch from engraving to drama, and besides being a droll tale that swings the reader back and forth between wistful sentiment and disillusioned irony, it also sheds some interesting light on Romanticist attitudes toward theatre, history, and the blending of life and art.
Posts
