Success
In 1777 O'Keefe moved to London. The following year he wrote Tony Lumpkin in Town a sequel to Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer and sent it to the manager of the Haymarket Theatre. The play was successfully produced, and O'Keefe regularly wrote for the Haymarket thereafter.
Between 1782 and 1796 O'Keefe wrote around 28 plays and comic operas. The Poor Soldier (1783), a comic opera with words and lyrics by O'Keeffe and music by William Shield, was a musical farce about the lives of British soldiers returning home after the American War of Independence. O'Keeffe also wrote The Son-in-Law, Agreeable Surprise which includes the lyrical poem Amo, Amas, and Castle of Andalusia.
O'Keefe had problems with his eyes ever since he had fallen into the River Liffey in his youth. From the mid-1770s O'Keefe increasingly lost his sight, and from 1781 his plays had to be dictated by him. In spite of this he was a prolific writer and was the most produced playwright in London in the last quarter of the 18th century. Some of his songs set to music by Arnold and Shield, such as I am a Friar of Orders Grey, and The Thorn, are still popular.
In 1800 a benefit performance was staged for him at Covent Garden. In 1826 O'Keefe wrote his memoirs which covered his life experiences and various interactions with the leading artistic figures of his day. The memoirs were dictated to his daughter Adelaide O'Keefe (1776-1865) who oversaw their publication. The same year he was awarded a pension by George IV. He died in 1833 in Southampton and was buried there.
Read more about this topic: John O'Keeffe (Irish Writer)
Famous quotes containing the word success:
“The greater speed and success that distinguish the planting of the human race in this country, over all other plantations in history, owe themselves mainly to the new subdivisions of the State into small corporations of land and power.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It’s not a field, I think, for people who need to have success every day: if you can’t live with a nightly sort of disaster, you should get out. I wouldn’t describe myself as lacking in confidence, but I would just say that ... the ghosts you chase you never catch.”
—John Malkovich (b. 1953)
“We live in a system of approximations. Every end is prospective of some other end, which is also temporary; a round and final success nowhere. We are encamped in nature, not domesticated.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)