ABSTRACT
Byron et at., Genuine Rejected Addresses (1812) and [James and Horace Smith] Rejected Addresses (1812); review by John Wilson Croker, Quarterly Review, VIII (Sept. 1812), 172-181. When the newly rebuilt Drury Lane Theatre was about to open, the Theatre Committee (of which Byron was a member) held a competition for a verse prologue to honor the occasion. Many were submitted but none chosen; instead, Byron himself wrote a prologue that was delivered. While rumors circulated about how bad the poems submitted had been, the brothers James and Horace Smith wrote and published anonymously (on the day of the opening in October 1812) parodies in the poetic manner of various well-known writers, including Scott, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, Crabbe, and Moore (as well as Cobbett’s prose) under the title Rejected Addresses. A rival publisher soon issued a selection of the actual rejected submissions. Rejected Addresses was both an immediate and a durable success, going through at least five editions in 1812, fifteen editions by 1813, a sixteenth edition in 1819, and its 22nd edition by 1851.
