Nell Gwyn - in Stage Works and Literature

In Stage Works and Literature

Nell Gwynne's life has inspired numerous stage works, including the following:

  • An 1884 operetta, Nell Gwynne, by Robert Planquette and H. B. Farnie.
  • Two plays, one by Paul Kester called Sweet Nell of Old Drury (1900), and a competing play, "Mistress Nell" by George Hazelton.
  • In 1900, an Edward Rose play called English Nell, later retitled Nell Gwynne, starring Marie Tempest, adapted from Anthony Hope's book, Simon Dale. Composer Edward German wrote incidental music for the play, and his Nell Gwyn Overture is still performed on occasion.
  • A 1924 musical was called Our Nell by Harold Fraser-Simson and Ivor Novello and starred Jose Collins and Walter Passmore (a rewrite of 1919's Our Peg, replacing Peg Woffington with Nell Gwynne. The 1922 Broadway musical by George Gershwin, also called "Our Nell, was not based on the Nell Gwynne story.
  • The 1926 novel Mistress Nell Gwynne by Marjorie Bowen
  • She appears in Bernard Shaw's late play In Good King Charles's Golden Days.
  • She's a character in Kathleen Winsor's best-selling 1944 novel "Forever Amber."
  • Jeanette Winterson's novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit opens with a Nell Gwynn quote, that gives the title of the novel: Oranges are not the only fruit.
  • The historical fiction novel The Perfect Royal Mistress by Diane Haeger.
  • The historical novel The King's Favorite by Susan Holloway Scott.
  • The historical novel The Darling Strumpet (2011) by Gillian Bagwell.
  • Gwynne appears in the book Dark Angels by Karleen Koen as Charles II's mistress.
  • Mary Hooper's children's historical novel Eliza Rose, where Gwyn is a central character.
  • Neal Stephenson's historical fiction trilogy, The Baroque Cycle, where Gwyn is a minor character.
  • Nell Gwynn appears in a historical novel by Priya Parmar, Exit the Actress (2011). Parmar makes use of authentic correspondence between English royalty in order to weave the story of Gwynn within the political and social tumult of the time.

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