Rowe, Nicholas

People > Rowe, Nicholas

Nicholas Rowe was born in Little Barford in 20 June 1674. He was well educated attending a private grammar school in Highgate and later, Westminster School. By the time he was seventeen Nicholas had decided to follow his father's footsteps and enter the legal profession; he entered Middle Temple and was called to the bar in 1696.

Nicholas found however that he was not particularly suited to the law and on his father's death he gradually gave it up to concentrate on furthering his studies and writing. In 1770 his first play - a tragedy - 'The Ambitious Stepmother' was staged. In 1702 his second play 'Tamerlaine' was produced to great popular success. Rowe also wrote other plays including 'Fair Penitent' (1703), 'Ulysses' (1706), 'Royal Convert' (1707), 'Jane Shore' (1714) and 'Lady Jane Grey' (1715).

In 1709 Rowe published a six volume edition of Shakespeare's plays, modernising the grammar, listing the dramatis personae for the first time and dividing and numbering the Acts and Scenes. In 1715 he was made Poet Laureate.

Rowe died in 1718 and was buried in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey.

In The Heritage Library at Bedford Central Library there is a copy of the "The Dramatic Works of Nicholas Rowe", 3 volumes published in 1733.

Sources:

• Nicholas Rowe by S. Edmondson in the Bedfordshire Magazine Vol.12 No. 89
• Nicholas Rowe in the Oxford Dictionary of Biography

Nicholas Rowe, by Bedfordshire Libraries, 2005.

Page last updated: 3rd February 2014