Joseph Reed

Joseph Reed.
  
“Old all the amusements that the world o’er saw, 
The Theatre is chief; yea, worth them all.” 

‘Peter Proletarius’  - George Markham Tweddell
[ Bards & Authors , p. 178]  

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Note: This short poem was to introduce Tweddell's chapter on Stockton playwright Joseph Reed in Bards and Authors of Cleveland and South Durham 1872.

You can download the book free on this page here via the Tweddell Hub - http://georgemarkhamtweddell.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/bards-and-authors-of-cleveland-and.html

There is also a chapter in William Hall Burnett's book Old Cleveland - Local Writers and Local Worthies, downloadable from the page on the Tweddell hub. http://georgemarkhamtweddell.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/old-cleveland-local-writers-and-local.html

Some more material to come to this post.


JOSEPH REED (1723 - 1787)

"The poet and playwright was born the son of a rope-maker in Stockton on Tees, and ran the business with vigor both in Stockton and London all his life. In 1750, he married Sarah Watson in Middlesbrough.

Reed always considered himself an amateur writer, despite his many publications and the success of several plays. He early developed an interest in combative pamphleteering, and between 1761-76 wrote four plays including his two most successful, The Register Office and the comic opera Tom Jones. Both derived from his relationship with the great Henry Fielding. The former work caught the public interest and became a standard afterpiece. The character Margery Moorpout, incidentally, extols Roseberry Topping. His tragedy Dido marked a collaboration with David Garrick, but trouble dogged the work. Joseph Ritson (q.v.) a friend of Reed, prepared it for the press in 1792 but it was not printed until 1808, and then perished in a fire."

From http://www.sclews.me.uk/m-reed.html



Margery Moorpout was performed at Dury Lane.