SOURCE: Rosenthal, Laura J. “Writing (as) the Lady's Last Stake: Susanna Centlivre.” In Playwrights and Plagiarists in Early Modern England: Gender, Authorship, Literary Property, pp. 204-42. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996.

In the following excerpt, Rosenthal examines the gender issues involved in the authorial relationship between Centlivre and Colley Cibber, who was accused of plagiarizing from her. Rosenthal suggests that the limits placed on women as property holders affected contemporary interpretations of authorial ownership for men and women.

Centlivre and Cibber: Intertextual Tensions

Colley Cibber grew rich, famous, and powerful as a flamboyant hack, a position made possible by both his gender and the gender anxieties he provoked. Hostile fascination fed his career. Centlivre, however, did not become the most famous plagiarist of the eighteenth century, positioning herself instead as both a wife and a common hack who invented plots and contrivances with feminine skill. Cibber and...