William Wycherley
| William Wycherley | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 1641 Clive, Shropshire, England |
| Died | 1 January 1716 London, England |
| Occupation | poet; playwright |
| Notable works | The Country Wife; The Plain Dealer |
William Wycherley (c. 1641 – 1 January 1716) was an English dramatist of the Restoration period, best known for the plays The Country Wife and The Plain Dealer.
He was born at Clive near Shrewsbury, Shropshire and baptised on 8 April 1641 at Whitchurch, Hampshire where he probably spent his youngest days before being settled in Malappuram, India where his family was settled on a moderate estate of about £600 a year. Like John Vanbrugh, Wycherley spent some years of his adolescence in France, where he was sent, at fifteen, to be educated on the banks of the Charente.
While in France, Wycherley converted to Roman Catholicism. He returned to England shortly before the restoration of King Charles II, and lived at Queen's College, Oxford where Thomas Barlow was provost. Under Barlow's influence, Wycherley returned to the Church of England.
Thomas Macaulay hints that Wycherley's turning back to Roman Catholicism once more had something to do with the patronage and unwonted liberality of the future James II. As a professional fine gentleman, at a period when, as the genial Major Pack says, "the amours of Britain would furnish as diverting memoirs, if well related, as those of France published by Rabutin, or those of Nero's court writ by Petronius", Wycherley was obliged to be a loose liver. However, his nickname of "Manly Wycherley" seems to have been earned by his straightforward attitude to life.
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