Gildon's Dramatic Works

Plays from the Late Restoration Period and the Start of the Eighteenth Century

Gildon made his first bids for literary fame writing for the theatre in the late 1690s. At this time there were two theatres in London, at Lincoln's Inn Fields and the Theatre Royal at Drury Lane, and they competed fiercely for a limited audience. Gildon's plays were produced by the company at Lincoln's Inn Fields, led by the well-known actor of the Restoration stage Thomas Betterton.

Gildon's plays are mostly tragedies, which he often describes as the greatest form of poetry, though only Love's Victim was a theatrical success. Two exceptions from the tragic genre included here are Apha Behn's The Younger Brother, a comedy which Gildon had produced after her death and which includes the life of Aphra Behn he penned, and his adaptation of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, which draws on Davenant's own adaptation of this play and to which Gildon added operatic elements.