George Farquhar

For other uses of Farquhar, see Farquhar (disambiguation)

George Farquhar.

George Farquhar (1678 – April 29, 1707) was an Irish dramatist. Born in Derry, the son of a clergyman, he attended Trinity College, Dublin, but left without any qualifications, possibly to join a roving troupe of actors. His career was blossoming, when an accident on stage during a performance of The Indian Emperor by John Dryden, in which he wounded a fellow actor in a sword fight, caused him to quit the Dublin stage.

He left Dublin for London in 1697, and his play, Love and a Bottle, was performed at Drury Lane theatre in the following year.

The Constant Couple was written when he was only twenty. The unexpected success of the production convinced him to try his hand at writing again with Sir Henry Wildair and The Inconstant, or the Way to Win Him. Farquhar was rapidly gaining a following, and in 1702 married someone he believed would be a wealthy patroness. When it turned out, however, that she was poor too, he set himself to work to support his new family. It was in this period that he produced The Stage Coach and The Twin Rivals. He remained impoverished, and decided to enter the army, which provided material for one of his best-known plays, The Recruiting Officer (1706). Soon afterwards came The Beaux' Stratagem, which was written while Farquhar lived in Lichfield, Staffordshire. But the author was in poor health, and died two months after its first production. The last work, completed as he was dying, is considered by many to be Farquhar's best. It was in The Twin Rivals, however, that his most frequently quoted line, "Necessity, the mother of invention," appears. He was buried in St. Martin in the Fields, London.

Works referencing Farquhar

• The 1987 play, Our Country's Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker, revolves around the true story of Australian convicts attempting to put on Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer in 1787. Wertenbaker's play features several scenes and direct quotes from Farquhar's.
• Mentioned in the television series Oliver's Travels written by Alan Plater.

See also

• List of Northern Irish writers
• Timberlake Wertenbaker

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