Rose, Edward

Edward Rose (1849-1904), dramatist and critic, was born at Swaffham, Norfolk, on 7 August 1849, the son of a medical doctor, Caleb Rose, and Isabella Morse. He was educated at Islington Proprietary School and Ipswich Grammar School, and also spent time in Scotland and Wales. In 1868 he was articled with the firm of Cobbold and Yarrington, solicitors of Ipswich, but after passing the Intermediate Examination, he left the law for literature, and moved to London in 1872.

Rose had already written comedies and a pantomime for the theatre in Ipswich. His first London work was a one-act comedy called Our farm, produced at the Queen's Theatre in 1871. He went on to write several dozen stage works, ranging from romantic drama to farce, and acted in many of them, specializing in comic roles. His greatest successes, however, were adaptations of other people's stories, notably Vice versa by F. Anstey in 1883, The prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope in January 1896, and Under the red robe by Stanley Weyman in October 1896.

...