At the close of the seventeenth century a new generation of dramatists was beginning to emerge in London. Joseph Addison, John Gay, and Richard Steele are surely among the most famous of this group, but a galaxy of minor figures arose as well, and in this second group we find John Hughes. While he began his literary career as a poet, publishing several long poems in honor of William III, Hughes was a playwright early on and contributed solid if undistinguished theatrical entertainments and one tragedy widely acknowledged in his own century as a major dramatic achievement.

Hughes early established and then maintained a respected position in the London theatrical community. Henry Paul reports that Hughes prepared an acting version of Hamlet for Robert Wilks "which was the stage version current in London from 1718 to 1763, when it was succeeded by Garrick's first version"; and the Dictionary of National...