Henry Pottinger Stephens

Stephens caricatured in Punch, 1881

Henry Pottinger Stephens (c. 1851 – 11 February 1903),[1] was an English dramatist and journalist.

After beginning his career writing for newspapers, Stephens began writing Victorian burlesques in the 1870s in collaboration with F. C. Burnand and the composer Edward Solomon. Stephens and Solomon wrote several comic operas together that briefly rivalled the Savoy Operas in popular esteem, including Billee Taylor (1880) and Claude Duval (1881). He also collaborated with Meyer Lutz at the Gaiety Theatre on burlesques including Little Jack Sheppard (1885). He worked again with Solomon on one of the first pieces considered a musical comedy, The Red Hussar (1889). He also wrote novels, plays and pantomimes, and acted in some of these.

  1. ^ Cleeve, Brian & Anne Brady. A Dictionary of Irish Writers (Dublin: Lilliput 1985) "Index of Authors & Journals - S" gives Stephens's year of birth as 1850