The Cry (book)

Title page

Jane Collier's and Sarah Fielding's The Cry: A New Dramatic Fable (1754) was Fielding's sixth and Collier's second and final work. The work is an allegorical and satirical dramatic dialogue which was never performed.[1] Collier and Fielding had worked together previously when Fielding wrote The Governess and when Collier wrote An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting, but The Cry is the only work that can be positively ascribed to the two together.[2] Collier died the year after its publication.

The piece was originally produced in three volumes and divided into five parts. The work involves many stories told through the character Portia to an audience consisting of Una, an allegorical figure representing truth, and "the Cry," a chorus that responds in turn.

  1. ^ Mann, David (1996). Women Playwrights in England, Ireland, and Scotland, 1660-1823. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. p. 384. ISBN 0-253-33087-4.
  2. ^ Woodward, "Jane Collier, Sarah Fielding ...,” 259–60.