SOURCE: Evans, Oliver H. “The Late Plays and Poems.” In George Henry Boker, pp. 89-125. Boston: Twayne, 1984.

In the following excerpt, Evans discusses Boker's writing career in the years following the production of Francesca da Rimini.

Königsmark, Nydia, and Glaucus

Written in 1853, Francesca da Rimini was not produced until 1855, a year before the publication of the Plays and Poems. Following the production of Francesca da Rimini and the publication of Plays and Poems, Boker's career changed direction as he gave up trying to achieve literary fame. The causes of that change—the relative failure of his published works, the Girard Bank lawsuit, which began in 1858, and the Civil War—have been discussed. The effects of these causes on Boker's later plays were not fortunate, since instead of continuing to develop his talent, he failed even to match the level he had achieved in Anne Boleyn, Leonor de...