Publisher's Synopsis
Fielding has been much studied as a novelist and is generally considered to have had an undistinguished career as a playwright. By 1737, however, he had become the most dominant professional playwright since Dryden.;He was the manager of his own troupe at the Little Haymarket in 1736 and was becoming known as a topical and political satirist when his theatrical career ended abruptly as a result of Walpole's Licensing Act.;This work examines his career as playwright and manager when he introduced some innovative and successful new forms of drama.