SOURCE: “Colley Cibber—Mrs. Centlivre,” in An Introduction to Eighteenth-Century Drama, 1700-1780, Greenwood Press, 1978, pp. 86-116.

In the following excerpt from a work that was originally published in 1953, Boas surveys Cibber's career as a playwright, paying particular attention to The Careless Husband, The Non-Juror, and The Provok'd Husband.

In the preceding chapters Colley Cibber has from time to time figured as an actor. He was also a voluminous writer of plays, of which the most representative were akin to Steele's sentimental comedies. Born in London on 6 November 1671 he was educated at Grantham and served in 1688 in the force raised by the Earl of Devonshire in aid of the Prince of Orange. In 1690 he joined in a minor capacity the Drury Lane Company, and thenceforward to the close of his life he was in the fullest sense a man of the theatre.

His first comedy, Love's Last Shift (1696), was...