ABSTRACT
Neither Dion Boucicault 2 (1820?-I890) nor Tom Taylor 3 (1817-1880) could satisfy this requirement. Boucicault, whose first successes were in the eighteen-forties, fixed the type of Victorian melodrama, adapted plots from Dumas fils and other foreign writers, and in The Colleen Bawn (1860) and later plays exploited Irish subjects. Taylor's talent was facile and prolific. In Our American Cousin (1858) the "character-part" of Lord Dundreary points the way towards individualization as opposed to reliance upon con-
ventional stage types. The Fool's Revenge (1859), adapted from Hugo, is the best of Taylor's pseudo-historical plays, and The Ticket-of-Leave Man (1863) is the best of his melodramas.
