Campbell, Bartley

Campbell, Bartley( 1843–88),
author of popular melodramas, moral and domestic dramas, and a blank-verse tragedy. His best play, My Partner (1879), shows the influence of Bret Harte in the treatment of California frontier life. The White Slave (1882) contains the line, “Rags are royal raiment, when worn for virtue's sake,” planted for the melodramatic effect that Campbell liked. His plays are collected in America's Lost Plays (1941).