BIOGRAPHY

Koon, Helene. Colley Cibber: A Biography. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1986, 239 p.

Attempts to reconcile Cibber's high standing in the theater world of the eighteenth century with his reputation as Pope's King of Dunces.

CRITICISM

Brown, Richard E. “The Fops in Cibber's Comedies.” Essays in Literature 9, No. 1 (Spring 1982): 31-41.

A study of Cibber's revision of the fop character; compares Cibber's roles with his real-life persona.

Dixon, Peter, and Rodney Hayley. “The Provoked Husband on the Nineteenth-Century Stage.” Nineteenth Century Theatre Research 8, No. 1 (Spring 1980): 1-16.

Considers the remarkable popularity which The Provoked Husband maintained for nearly 150 years, with a focus on differing acting styles.

Hayley, Rodney L. Introduction to The Plays of Colley Cibber, Vol. 1, pp. ix-lx. New York: Garland Publishing, 1980.

Provides production histories and plot summaries for Cibber's most popular plays, emphasizing Cibber's excellence as an entertainer and a writer of witty banter and domestic farce.

Hughes, Derek. “Cibber and Vanbrugh: Language, Place, and Social Order in Love's Last Shift.” Comparative Drama 20, No. 4 (Winter 1986-87): 287-304.

Links Cibber's use of language with the moral conclusion of his first play, arguing that for Cibber linguistic order prepares the way for moral order, and thus for social order.

Hughes, Leo. “Theatre and the Art of Caricature.” In British Theater and the Other Arts, 1660-1800, edited by Shirley Strum Kenny, pp. 219-33. Washington: The Folger Shakespeare Library, 1984.

Discusses print wars involving Cibber, Henry Fielding, and Cibber's son, Theophilus.

Rosenthal, Laura J. “‘Ladies and Fop Authors Never Are at Odds’: Colley Cibber, Female Wits.” In Playwrights and Plagiarists in Early Modern England: Gender, Authorship, Literary Property, pp. 162-203. Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996.

Examines the frequent charges of Cibber's literary theft and his performances in plays attacking women playwrights to illuminate the relations among gender, class, and authority.

Straub, Kristina “Colley Cibber's Butt: Class, Race, Gender, and the Construction of Sexual Identity.” Genre 23, Nos. 2-3 (Summer-Fall 1990): 135-59.

Analysis of Cibber's self-representation in his Apology, emphasizing the interplay of various methods of identity formation.

Viator, Timothy J. “Richard Savage on Colley Cibber: Idle Verse and the Duties of a Poet.” English Language Notes 26, No. 2 (Autumn1988): 24-9.

Considers Savage, a poet who envied Cibber's post as Poet Laureate, as an example of Cibber's growing list of detractors. Savage maintained that Cibber's frivolous writings ill-suited the office and named himself the Volunteer Laureate.

Additional coverage of Cibber's life and career is contained in the following source published by the Gale Group: Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 84.