" Sometimes, conventions seized the humourous side of Howard.
From England, around 1883, he wrote, "Methinks there is danger in the
feeling expressed about 'local colouring.' English managers would put
the Garden of Eden in Devonshire, if you adapted Paradise Lost for
them--and insist on giving Adam an eye-glass and a title."
Howard was above all an American; he was always emphasizing his
nationality; and this largely because the English managers changed
"Saratoga" to "Brighton," and "The Banker's Daughter" to "The Old Love
and the New." I doubt whether he relished William Archer's inclusion
of him in a volume of "English Dramatists of To-day," even though
that critic's excuse was that he "may be said to occupy a place among
English dramatists somewhat similar to that occupied by Mr. Henry
James among English novelists." Howard was quick to assert his
Americanism, and to his home town he wrote a letter from London,
in 1884, disclaiming the accusation that he was hiding his local
inheritance behind a French technique and a protracted stay abroad
on business. He married an English woman--the sister of the late Sir
Charles Wyndham--and it was due to the latter that several of his
plays were transplanted and that Howard planned collaboration with
Sir Charles Young.
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