Hunchback, The

Hunchback, The (1832). Sheridan Knowles's romantic drama was written for Fanny Kemble and first acted by her in 1832 in London. The story centers on a country girl, Julia, who comes to London, where her eyes are seemingly blinded by the allures of high society. She would throw over her faithful, good‐natured lover and marry a much richer man, but luckily she sees the error of her ways, repents, and is happily reunited with the right man. The first New York performance, also in 1832, offered Mrs. Sharpe as Julia. The drama remained extremely popular for the rest of the century. In 1870 the Times referred to it as “the play that has stirred the hearts of lovers more than, with one exception, any other in the modern repertory” and called Julia “the most difficult serious part written for a heroine in the last fifty years.” Among the great interpreters of the role on American stages were Kemble, Charlotte Cushman, Clara Morris, Mary Anderson, Julia Marlowe, and Viola Allen. Opinions on the play changed with the coming of the new century, and in 1902 the same Times dismissed the work by branding it “as absurd and false a play as ever took the manner of Shakespeare in vain.”