Life
1814-1880; b. Dublin, 9 May [var. 19]; ed. TCD, Medicine; moved to St. Peter’s Hospital, London, 1830; appeared successfully at Tottenham Street Theatre, 1830; managed Lyceum, 1842-60; involved in law suit with Boucicault over London Assurance; opened Brougham’s Lyceum, Broadway, NY, 15 Oct. 1850; visits London, 1860-65; played The O’Grady in both the original and the London productions of Boucicault’s Arrah na Pogue (1864); author of more than 70 plays including the libretti for Blanche de Nevers, The Demon Lovers, and Bride of Venice; said to be model for Lever’s Harry Lorrequer; verse, prose and fairy tales were published in new York as A Basket of Chips (1855), of which ‘The Bunsby Papers’ were issued separately two years later; Home Rule was his last play and Felix O’Reilly in Boucicault’s Rescued at Booth’s Theatre, his last role; d. 7 June, New York. ODNB JMC GBI DIW RAF OCIL
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Works
The Demon Gift, or Visions of the Future (1840); Life in the Clouds, or Olympus in an Uproar (1840); Love’s Livery (1840); The Hunter’s Bride, or the Rose of Altenheim (1841); The Enthusiast (1842); Romance and Reality, or Silence Gives Consent [Dicks Plays 730] (1847); Jane Eyre, or the Secrets of Thornfield Manor House [NY: French, 32pp.] (1848); Irish plays post-1850 The Irish Emigrant [pub. Lacy]; The Irish Yankee [pub. French]; A Recollection of O’Flannagan and the Fairies [pub. Lacy]. Also A Basket of Chips (NY: Bunce & Bros. 1855), 408pp., incl. ‘The Bunsby Papers’, pp.229-408; The Bunsby Papers: Irish Echoes (NY: Derby & Jackson 1857), viii, 9, 298pp; William Winter, ed., Life, Stories and Poems of John Brougham (Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co. 1881), vii, 15, 461pp. [Sect. I: ‘Autobiography’, 15-92pp.; Sect. II: ‘A Supplementary Memoir’, 97-144pp.; Sect. III: ‘Sketch of his Club Life’, 144-54pp.; Sect. IV: ‘Selections from his Miscellaneous Writings’ (156-461pp.). [See Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English: The Romantic Period, 1789-1850 (Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe 1980), Vol. 2.]
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References
D. J. O’Donoghue, Poets of Ireland (Dublin: Hodges Figgis 1912) gives three-line bio-notice; Irish Literature, gen. ed. Justin McCarthy (Washington: Catholic Univ. of America 1904), selects ‘Ned Geraghty’s Luck,’ in extract; Stephen Brown, S.J., Guide to Books on Ireland (Dublin: Talbot 1912), gives listing of his Irish-subject plays; Brian Cleeve & Ann Brady, A Dictionary of Irish Writers (Dublin: Lilliput 1985) copies notice in O’Donoghue (op. cit.)
British Library holds Life, Stories and Poems of John Brougham (Boston 1880).
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