INTRODUCTION

Arthur Murphy's afterpiece, The Englishman From Paris, was given its first and last performance at Drury Lane on 3 April 1756. According to the prompter's account the play "went off well," and the receipts for the night, £240, indicate that a large audience attended.[1] However, despite these optimistic signs, Murphy never published the play nor did he allow it to be presented again on any stage. It is even possible that Murphy tried to destroy all traces of it; for the Lord Chamberlain's copy from which this edition is printed was not found in the usual depository, the Larpent Collection. Instead, the manuscript got in the hands of private collectors, was wrongly ascribed to Samuel Foote, and was sold in a series of auctions as an unconsidered part of a lot of rare biblical and Shakesperian items.[2] In this manner the play finally came into the possession of the Newberry Library where it eventually was correctly catalogued, but its adventitious provenance is marked by it being the only manuscript play in the collection.

[1] The London Stage 1660-1800, ed. George Winchester Stone, Jr. (Carbondale, Ill., 1962), Part 4, II, 536. I would like to thank the Newberry Library for permission to reproduce this previously unpublished manuscript of Murphy's Englishman From Paris.

[2] Simon Trefman, "Arthur Murphy's Long Lost Englishman From Paris: A Manuscript Discovered," Theatre Notebook, XX (Summer 1966), 137-138.

Certainly one important reason for Murphy's reticence to exhibit his play can be found in the events leading up to its production. Samuel Foote, who at this time was known as a comic actor and a writer of farces, was a close friend of Murphy's and in the summer of 1754, when Murphy was short of money, had taken him into his house. He encouraged the young Murphy to become an actor, gave him lessons, and, no doubt, was useful in getting him started in his new career at Covent Garden. The following summer saw Murphy in far better circumstances. Garrick articled him to act as a replacement for Mossop and also scheduled Murphy's first farce, The Apprentice, for production that same season. In a gush of confidence, Murphy told Foote, whose help and encouragement had borne such fruit, of his plans for a new farce. He was going to write a sequel to one of Foote's plays, The Englishman in Paris (C. G. 24 March 1753), a popular farce that satirized the boorish antics of a young English squire in a country where politeness is the mode. Murphy's idea was to show this blood returned to England as a Frenchified effeminate fop at odds with his family and former friends. Foote listened closely as Murphy gave him the plot and even some of the dialogue. Then, thinking that no one had a better right to a sequel than the author of the original, Foote, keeping his own counsel, wrote The Englishman Return'd From Paris in time for the new season.[3]