Henry James Byron

right|thumb|Byron in the 1870s

Henry James Byron (8 January 1835 – 11 April 1884) was a prolific English dramatist, as well as an editor, director, theatre manager, novelist and actor.

After an abortive start at a medical career, Byron struggled as a provincial actor and aspiring playwright in the 1850s. Returning to London and beginning to study for the bar, he finally found playwriting success in burlesques and other punny plays. In the 1860s, he became an editor of humorous magazines and a noted man-about-town, while continuing to build his playwriting reputation, notably as co-manager, with Marie Wilton, of the Prince of Wales's Theatre. In 1869, he returned to the stage as an actor and, during the same period, wrote numerous successful plays, including the historic international success, Our Boys. In his last years, he grew frail from tuberculosis and died at the age of 49.

Biography

Byron was born in Manchester, England, the son of Henry Byron (1804–1884, second cousin to the poet Lord Byron and descendant of many Lords Byron), at one time British consul in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and Elizabeth Josephine née Bradley. He was educated in Essex and then at St. Peter's Collegiate School in Eaton Square, London. Although his mother wanted him to pursue a career in the Navy, Byron did not do so. Instead, he first became a physician's clerk in London for four years and then studied medicine with his grandfather, Dr. James Byron Bradley, in Buxton. Byron married Martha Foulkes (1831–1876) in London in 1856. He entered the Middle Temple as a student briefly in 1858, but he had already begun writing for the stage and soon returned to that vocation.

Early career

thumb|right|Poster for Byron's 1859–60 pantomime, Jack the Giant Killer

Byron joined several provincial companies as an actor from 1853–57, sometimes in his own plays and sometimes in those of T. W. Robertson (with whom he acted and starved) or others, but had little success. He described his early attempts at acting, and the hardships of the journeyman touring actor, in an 1873 essay for The Era Almanack and Annual called "Eighteen Parts a Week". He began writing burlesques of melodramas and extravaganzas in the mid-1850s. In 1857, his burlesque of Richard of the Lion Heart premièred at the Royal Strand Theatre. His successful works in 1858 included The Lady of Lyons, or, Twopenny Pride and Pennytence and Fra Diavolo Travestie; or, The Prince, the Pirate and the Pearl, also at the Strand, which later played in New York. This was so well received that Byron abandoned the law to concentrate full-time on theatre. and followed the next year by Robinson Crusoe, or Harlequin Friday and the King of the Caribee Islands!

Byron also wrote for periodicals, and in 1861, he became the first editor of Fun magazine, where he showcased the comic talents of the then-unknown W. S. Gilbert. He became editor of Comic News in 1863. He also founded the short-lived Comic Trials and wrote a three-volume novel, Paid in Full, in 1865. In 1867, he became the editor of Wag, another humour magazine, He wrote numerous dramatic critiques and humorous essays for magazines, including the rival of Fun, Punch. During this period, he was a well-known man-about-town, joining, and popular as a guest at, various London dining clubs and, in 1863, becoming a founding member of the Arundel Club. He became a Member of the Dramatic Authors' Society by 1860.

At the same time, he continued writing for the Strand, the Adelphi, the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, the Haymarket Theatre and the Princess's, among other London theatres. and Esmeralda, or, The Sensation Goat (1861), all in rhymed couplets. Another success was George de Barnwell; or Harlequin Folly in the Realms of Fancy (1862). Several of these early plays were revived in Britain and received New York productions. He followed this with successful outings as Fitzaltamont in The Prompter's Box: A Story of the Footlights and the Fireside (1870), The Prompter's Box (1870, revived in 1875 and often thereafter, and later renamed The Crushed Tragedian), Captain Craven in Daisy Farm (1871) and Lionel Leveret in Old Soldiers (1873). Byron's acting was again admired in An American Lady in 1874, with which he began as the manager of the Criterion Theatre, and then Married in Haste (1875) which was much revived. In 1876, he played in his The Bull by the Horns and Old Chums. Other roles included Dick Simpson in Conscience Money (1878), Charles Chuckles in his An English Gentleman (1879) and John Blunt in his Michael Strogoff (1881). Weak Woman (1875, starring Marion Terry), and his greatest success, Our Boys (1875–79, Vaudeville Theatre). It was also much revived, especially in America. and The Gaiety Gulliver (1879). Also during that period, he edited the humour magazine Mirth. After 1880, as his health greatly declined, so did Byron's playwriting output.

Byron is described by Jim Davis in the introduction to his 1984 collection, Plays by H. J. Byron, as the most prolific playwright of the mid-Victorian period, as he produced over 150 dramatic pieces. The Times called Byron a master of "genial wit and humour". It also commented that "The secret of his success... lay chiefly in his dialogue, which is seldom otherwise than neat, pointed and amusing. He fires verbal shots in such rapid succession that one laugh has scarcely died away when another is raised. In the delineation of character, too, he is often extremely happy".