Biography

David Garrick. (1717-1779)

English actor, dramatist and theatre manager of the Drury Lane theater. Son of Peter Garrick (1681-1736/7) and Arabella Clough (1694-1740). Brother of George Garrick. He arrived in London in 1737 together with his former mentor Dr. Johnson. He had his breakthrough in 1741 when he starred as Richard III in Shakespeares play, and he was one of the most (if not the most) popular London actor for the following 30 years. In 1747 he became the manager of Drury Lane, a position which he kept until 1776.

Life with James Boswell:

According to BLA, Boswell had met David Garrick as early as 1760. They next met on January 13, 1763 in Garrick's own home in London, where Garrick extended a permanent breakfast invitation to Boswell. On January 20 of that year he predicted that "you [Boswell] will be a very great man". On January 21 they breakfasted together, in the company of James Love and John Brown. Boswell didn't see much more of him during the remainder of his 62-63 stay in London. They later met as fellow members of Samuel Johnson's club.

External links:

• Wikipedia: David Garrick

Literature:

From Amazon.co.uk

• Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick: Interspersed with Characters..
• The Clandestine Marriage
• [Boswell's] Correspondence with David Garrick, Edmund Burke and Edmund Malone

From Questia - the Internet's Largest Library

• Burnim, Kalman A. (1961) David Garrick, Director. (Read it now!)
• Oman, Carola. (1958) David Garrick. (Read it now!)
• Bergman, F.L. (1980). The Plays of David Garrick, Vol. 1. (Read it now!)

If you find nothing of interest on Amazon or Questia, you might try the Abebooks used books search engine.

This article was last updated at February 16 2008 20:29:52 CET

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