Burnand, FRANCIS COWLEY

Burnand, FRANCIS COWLEY, author and dramatist, was born 29th November 1836. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge (1854-58), and afterwards went to Cuddesdon Theological College with a view to becoming a clergyman of the Church of England. In December 1858 he joined the Catholic Church, and for four months continued his studies at the house of the Oblate Fathers at Bayswater. His first farce had been produced at Eton in 1851, and at Cambridge he had founded the 'A.D.C.' of which, subsequently, the Prince of Wales became president, and of which Mr Burnand published a History in 1879. He was called to the bar in 1862, but the success of some early dramatic ventures altered his plans. He has produced between eighty and a hundred pieces, chiefly extravaganzas and burlesques; four dramas; and some very successful comedies. He joined Mr H. J. Byron in starting Fun, but left that paper for Punch, then edited by Mark Lemon, in 1863. His first contribution to Punch was Mokeanna, a burlesque on sensational romance writing; soon after appeared How, When, and Where, followed by the now well-known Happy Thoughts, which in book form soon ran through over sixteen editions. Later, he continued the Happy Thoughts series, and wrote a series of burlesques of popular novelists, that on Ouida's style, Strapmore, being perhaps the happiest. Mr Burnand became editor of Punch in 1880. He wrote the libretto for Sullivan's Chieftain (1894).