Byron, Henry James

Byron, Henry James (1834–84), English actor and playwright, best known in his own day for a long series of burlesques and extravaganzas, usually staged at the smaller London theatres, which began in 1857 with Richard of the Lion Heart and ended in 1881 with Pluto; or, Little Orpheus and his Lute. Two of his more serious comedies were War to the Knife (1865) and A Hundred Thousand Pounds (1866). His most successful play and the only one now remembered was Our Boys. This was produced at the Vaudeville Theatre in Jan. 1875 and ran till Aug. 1879, setting up a long-lasting record of 1,362 performances. He wrote about 150 works, based on themes from mythology, nursery tales, opera, legend, and topical events; his style, though ingenious, was overloaded with puns and in his more serious plays he tended to rely on stock types. He reflected the prevailing taste of the day, and that, and his own charming personality, doubtless accounted for much of his ephemeral success. As an actor he appeared mainly in his own plays, making his first appearance in London in 1869 in one of his early comedies and his last (exceptionally) in W. S. Gilbert's Engaged in 1881.