Stephen Phillips is of greater interest as a phenomenon of English stage history than as a playwright. That fashions change and that fame is ephemeral are hardly sufficient reasons to account for the meteoric career of Phillips, whose verse dramas dominated the Edwardian stage, enjoying both a literary and a popular success virtually unparalleled in modern times. The victim of praise too early and too lavishly administered, Phillips lacked both the personal and artistic fortitude to mature his talents. His best play is undoubtedly his earliest, and in the parade of productions that succeeded it we may read a cautionary tale of the perils of the commercial stage to a sensitive spirit.

Born at Summertown, near Oxford, the son of Rev. Dr. Stephen Phillips, precentor of Peterborough Cathedral, Phillips imputed his poetic temperament to his mother, Agatha Sophia Dockray, who was related to the Wordsworths. He was educated...