Lillo

Lillo, GEORGE, English dramatist, was born in London on 4th February 1693, and died on 3d September 1739. Whilst carrying on the business of a jeweller in London he wrote seven plays, two of which are frequently printed in collections of acting-plays. These are Fatal Curiosity (1736) and George Barnwell (1732), both admirably constructed and with truly tragic conclusions, though the language is inflated and conventional. His Arden of Feversham (written in 1736, not published till 1762) is a weak version of an old anonymous play bearing the same title, written in 1592 and reprinted by A. H. Bullen in 1888. Apart from the tragic quality of his plays, Lillo deserves mention as being almost the first English playwright to take his characters from middle-class life. For long it was an old custom to act George Barnwell in certain London theatres on the night after Christmas and on Easter Monday. See Lillo's Dramatic Works, with Life (2 vols. 1772).