Augustin Daly

Augustin Daly 1838-99, American theatrical manager and dramatist, b. Plymouth, N.C. After 1859 he was drama critic for several New York City newspapers and adapted many plays from French and German. In 1867 he made his debut as manager with his melodrama Under the Gaslight, and in 1869 he opened his first theater. At his famous Daly's Theatre on Broadway he presented noted productions of Shakespearean comedies. He was praised for his meticulous concern with details and hated for what his critics saw as his paternalistic handling of his company.

Bibliography: See biography by J. F. Daly (1917); M. Felheim, The Theatre of Augustin Daly (1956).

Daly, Thomas Augustine (1871–1948), Philadelphia poet and journalist. He is best known for his humorous, sympathetic treatments of Irish and Italian immigrants, in such dialect verse as Canzoni (1906), Carmina (1909), Madrigali (1912), McAroni Ballads (1919), and McAroni Medleys (1931).

Daly, [John] Augustin (1838–99), author or adapter of more than 90 plays, most of which were radically altered from the original French or German, and often given an American setting. His own best plays were Horizon (1871), a romantic drama of the West, and Divorce (1871), a problem play, but he was also the author of melodramas such as Under the Gaslight (1867), in which heroes were tied to logs about to be sawed in two, or bound to railroad tracks in the paths of onrushing trains. The most successful of his ventures as a producer were in the theater in New York City that bore his name, where he staged many of his own adaptations, several of the leading English comedies of manners, and superb productions of Shakespeare.