The Temple Beau - Background

Background

Fielding wrote The Temple Beau sometime after leaving Leiden in April 1729. It was the fourth play that Fielding wrote and he finished it by the end of 1729. Although his first play was performed at the Theatre Royal, The Temple Beau was rejected by the theatre. He turned to Goodman's Fields and the play was first advertised, in the 16 January 1730 Daily Journal, as being rehearsed and to open 22 January. A deferral notice was posted on 22 January 1730 in the Daily Journal and Daily Courant stating that the play would open 26 January.

It first ran on 26 January 1730 at Goodman's Fields, a new theatre that first opened 31 October 1729. The play was the first new play staged at Goodman's Fields and it ran for nine nights until 5 February 1730. Three of the nights were author's benefits. For the first author's benefit on 28 January, Fielding added a new song titled "Like the Whig and the Tory". Later showings of the play came immediately on 10 February and 3 March 1730. Other revivals included showings on 5 June and 9 July 1730 but it slowly disappeared, with only two showings the next year, on 13 March and 4 December 1731, and a later revival in 1736 on 25 March and 27 April, all taking place at Goodman's Fields. A revised version of the play titled The Temple Beau; or, The Intriguing Sisters was performed on 21 September 1782 at the Haymarket theatre.

On 2 February 1730, it was published along with a prologue added by James Ralph that attacked the treatment of authors by society, making the beginning of a theatrical relationship between Ralph and Fielding. The publication was advertised in The St. James's Evening Post, the London Evening Post, the Whitehall Evening Post, and the Monthly Chronicle. The edition printed was the only London edition of the play on its own with a Dublin edition printed in 1730. The play was later collected in Arthur Murphy's edition of Fielding's Works (1762).