Thomas Otway

Thomas Otway (3 March 1652 – 14 April 1685) was an English dramatist of the Restoration period, best known for Venice Preserv'd, or A Plot Discover'd (1682).

Otway was born at Trotton near Midhurst, the parish of which his father, Humphrey Otway, was at that time curate. Humphrey later became rector of Woolbeding, a neighbouring parish, where Thomas Otway was brought up and expected to commit to priesthood. He was educated at Winchester College, and in 1669 entered Christ Church, Oxford, as a commoner, but left the university without a degree in the autumn of 1672. At Oxford he made the acquaintance of Anthony Cary, 5th Viscount Falkland, through whom, he says in the dedication to Caius Marius, he first learned to love books. In London he made acquaintance with Aphra Behn, who in 1672 cast him as the old king in her play, Forc'd Marriage, or The Jealous Bridegroom, at the Dorset Garden Theatre. However, due to severe stage fright, he gave an abysmal performance and never returned to the stage, instead opting to write what was being performed. The same year as the performance, his father died, triggering Otway to officially abandon any thoughts of priesthood and move to London to become a playwright, where he discovered his muse.

The muse he had fallen in love with was Elizabeth Barry, who played many of the leading parts in his plays. Six letters to her survive, the last of them referring to a broken appointment in the Mall. She seems to have flirted with Otway, but had no intention of permanently offending Rochester, her lover. In 1678, driven to desperation, Otway obtained a commission through Charles, Earl of Plymouth, a natural son of Charles II, in a regiment serving in the Netherlands. The English troops were disbanded in 1679, but were left to find their way home as best they could. They were paid with depreciated paper, and Otway arrived in London late in the year, ragged and dirty, a circumstance utilized by Elkanah Settle in his Sessions of the Poets.