As an actor, manager, and playwright, Colley Cibber was among the most influential members of the London theater in the 18th century. In this book, he not only defended himself against personal attacks from such well-known figures as Johnson, Fielding, and Pope, but also produced one of the most important and indispensable accounts of a vital period in English theatrical history. Cibber accurately chronicles the plays, playwrights, and actors of the day in unstinting detail, affording theater lovers and historians an incomparable glimpse of the beginnings of modern theater.