An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber, Comedian, and Late Patentee of the Theater-Royal. With an Historical View of the Stage During His Own Time, 2nd Edition

Cibber, Colley

The Author, Printed By John Watts, 1740

Octavo, 19 cm. Second edition. Later 3/4 leather over marbled boards. Marbled endpapers, page ends washed yellow. Title page in red and black. Frontis, [16] 488 pp. Moderate rubbing to leather. Minor toning, scattered spotting.

Cibber's colourful autobiography An Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber, Comedian was chatty, meandering, anecdotal, vain, and occasionally inaccurate. At the time of writing the word "apology" meant an apologia, a statement in defence of one's actions rather than a statement of regret for having transgressed. The text virtually ignores his wife and family, but Cibber wrote in detail about his time in the theatre, especially his early years as a young actor at Drury Lane in the 1690s, giving a vivid account of the cut-throat theatre company rivalries and chicanery of the time, as well as providing pen portraits of the actors he knew. The Apology is vain and self-serving, as both his contemporaries and later commentators have pointed out, but it also serves as Cibber's rebuttal to his harshest critics, especially Pope. For the early part of Cibber's career, it is unreliable in respect of chronology and other hard facts, understandably, since it was written 50 years after the events, apparently without the help of a journal or notes. Nevertheless, it is an invaluable source for all aspects of the early 18th-century theatre in London, for which documentation is otherwise scanty. Because he worked with many actors from the early days of Restoration theatre, such as Thomas Betterton and Elizabeth Barry at the end of their careers, and lived to see David Garrick perform, he is a bridge between the earlier mannered and later more naturalistic styles of performance. 

From the estate of Jim Graham, former D.C. council member, head of Whitman-Walker Clinic and gay community pioneer.