ABSTRACT
During his long career, William Thomas Moncrieff’s plays appeared at various theatres, including the Adelphi, Lyceum, Olympia, and Royal Coburg. He composed successful works with prominent performers, writing The Bashful Man and other plays for the great comic actor Charles Mathews the elder. Moncrieff gained a reputation for bringing popular novels to stage, sometimes doing so without waiting for the end of their serialization. In the Shipwreck of the Medusa; or, the Fatal Raft!, William Thomas Moncrieff tells the story of the tragic 1816 shipwreck of the French naval frigate Medusa, which ran aground off the coast of modern day Mauritania. Medusa incorporates the rarely dramatized ceremony that sailors conducted when “crossing the line” or equator. The story of the shipwrecked Medusa proved a popular one in 1820, when it appeared in three British venues.
