John Gay Popular Books
John Gay Biography & Facts
John Gay (30 June 1685 – 4 December 1732) was an English poet and dramatist and member of the Scriblerus Club. He is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera (1728), a ballad opera. The characters, including Captain Macheath and Polly Peachum, became household names. Early life Gay was born in Barnstaple, England, last of five children of William Gay (died 1695) and Katherine (died 1694), daughter of Jonathan Hanmer, "the leading Nonconformist divine of the town" as founder of the Independent Dissenting congregation in Barnstaple. The Gay family- "fairly comfortable... though far from rich"- lived in "a large house, called the Red Cross, on the corner of Joy Street". The Gay family was "of respectable antiquity" in North Devon, associated with the manor of Goldsworthy at Parkham and with the parish of Frithelstock (where the senior line remained, resident at the priory Cloister Hall with its lands, until 1823) and became "powerful and numerous" in the town, "established among Barnstaple's leading families for generations". Gay's great-grandfather, Anthony Gay, served as Mayor; his wife, Elizabeth, was daughter of the merchant and three-time Mayor of Barnstaple, Richard Beaple. Gay was educated at the town's grammar school. On leaving school- his elder brother, Jonathan, an Army officer, having inherited the family property- Gay was apprenticed to a silk mercer in London, but being weary, according to Samuel Johnson, "of either the restraint or the servility of his occupation", he soon returned to Barnstaple, where he was educated by his uncle, the Rev. John Hanmer, the nonconformist minister of the town. He then returned to London. Early career His first play, The Mohocks (1712), had censorship issues. The following year he wrote a comedy The Wife of Bath, which appeared at the Drury Lane Theatre.The dedication of his Rural Sports (1713) to Alexander Pope began a lasting friendship with him. In 1714, Gay wrote The Shepherd's Week, a series of six pastorals drawn from English rustic life. Pope had urged him to undertake this in order to ridicule the Arcadian pastorals of Ambrose Philips, who had been praised by a short-lived contemporary publication The Guardian, to the neglect of Pope's claim to be the first pastoral writer of the age and the true English Theocritus. Gay's pastorals achieved this goal and his ludicrous pictures of the English country lads and their loves were found to be entertaining on their own account.In 1713 Gay and Pope both joined the Scriblerus Club, a group of Tory writers supportive of first minister Robert Harley that also included John Arbuthnot, Jonathan Swift and Thomas Parnell. Diplomatic service In 1714 Gay was appointed secretary to the Earl of Clarendon the new British ambassador to the Electorate of Hanover through the influence of Swift. However the death of Queen Anne three months later put an end to his hopes of official employment. The mission had been an unsuccessful attempt by the Tories to ingratiate themselves with Elector George, heir to the throne, who was angry that the Peace of Utrecht had led to Britain's abandoning its allies in the war against France and suspected that the Tory leadership favoured the Jacobites. The Hanoverian succession led to the ousting of the Harley Ministry and establishment of the Whig oligarchy and Gay never held a government post again. While in Hanover he met Caroline of Ansbach, the future Princess of Wales, and Henrietta Howard, who would become a close friend of his. Return to London In 1715, probably with some help from Pope, Gay produced The What D'Ye Call It?, a dramatic skit on contemporary tragedy, with special reference to Thomas Otway's Venice Preserv'd. This appeared on 23 February 1715 as an afterpiece at Drury Lane to Nicholas Rowe's tragedy Jane Shore. It left the public so ignorant of its inner meaning that Lewis Theobald and Benjamin Griffin published a Complete Key to What D'Ye Call It to explain it. The play also featured a ballad, Twas When the Seas Were Roaring, co-written with George Frideric Handel, which became popular in its own right. In 1716 appeared his Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London, a poem in three books, for which he acknowledged receiving several hints from Swift. It contains graphic and humorous descriptions of the London of that period, depicting the city with photographic accuracy and acting as a guide to the upper-class and upper-middle-class walkers of society. By taking a mock-heroic form, Gay's poem was able to poke fun at the notion of complete reformation of street civility, while also proposing an idea of reform in terms of the attitude towards walking. In January 1717 he produced a comedy, Three Hours After Marriage, which was thought to be grossly indecent (without being amusing) and a failure. He had assistance from Pope and John Arbuthnot, but they allowed it to be assumed that Gay was the sole author.By 1717 Gay was associated with George, Princes of Wales, who as part of the Whig Split had set up a rival court to his father the King which was frequented by opposition Whigs and Tories. In 1718 he collaborated with Handel on the masque Acis and Galatea for which he supplied the libretto. Patrons Gay had numerous patrons, and in 1720 he published Poems on Several Occasions by subscription, taking in £1000 or more. In that year James Craggs, the secretary of state, presented him with some South Sea stock. Gay, disregarding the advice of Pope and others of his friends, invested all his money in South Sea stock, and, holding on to the end of the South Sea Bubble, he lost everything. The shock is said to have made him dangerously ill. His friends did not fail him at this juncture. He had patrons in William Pulteney, afterwards Earl of Bath, in the third Earl of Burlington, who constantly entertained him at Chiswick or at Burlington House, and in the Duke and Duchess of Queensberry. He was a frequent visitor with Pope, and received unvarying kindness from William Congreve and John Arbuthnot. In 1727 he wrote for six-year-old Prince William, later the Duke of Cumberland, Fifty-one Fables in Verse, for which he naturally hoped to gain some preferment, although he has much to say in them of the servility of courtiers and the vanity of court honours. He was offered the situation of gentleman-usher to the Princess Louisa, who was also still a child. He refused this offer, all his friends seemingly having regarded it- "for no very obvious reason"- as an indignity. His friends thought him unfairly neglected, but Gay, who had never rendered any special services to the court, had nevertheless been given a sinecure as lottery commissioner with a salary of £150 a year in 1722, and from 1722 to 1729 had lodgings in the palace at Whitehall. The Beggar's Opera He certainly did nothing to conciliate the favour of the government by his next work, The Beggar's Opera, a ballad opera produced on the 29 January 1728 by John Rich, in which Sir Robert .... Discover the John Gay popular books. Find the top 100 most popular John Gay books.
Best Seller John Gay Books of 2024
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Lord John and the Private Matter
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Body Counts
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The Garden of Eden
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Earthly Joys
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Changing Tides
Michael Thomas FordA marine biologist learns about fatherhood, love, and himself over the course of one summer in this novel by the awardwinning author of Full Circle.Marine biologist Ben Ransome und...
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The Chimes
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Moby Dyke
Krista BurtonA former Rookie contributor and creator of the popular blog Effing Dykes investigates the disappearance of America’s lesbian bars by visiting the last few in existence.Lesbian bars...
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Embers And Echoes
Daniel De LorneBlue lights in the red dust...Echo Springs on the edge of the outback – a town where everyone knows your name, and your business. But the wholesome country living and welcoming com...
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Black John
Amy LaneJohnnies: Book FourJohn Carey is just out of rehab and dying inside when he gets word that Tory, the guy who loved him and broke him, has removed himself from the world in the most...
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Reporting Always
Lillian RossFrom the inimitable New Yorker journalist Lillian Ross“a collection of her most luminous New Yorker pieces” (Entertainment Weekly, grade: A).A staff writer for The New Yorker since...
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The New Life
Tom CreweWinner of the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction, the Prix du Premier Roman Étranger, the Sunday Times Young Writer Award, and the South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature Named a...
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Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade
Diana GabaldonNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Diana Gabaldon, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Outlander saga, brings back one of her most compelling characters: Lord John Grey. ...
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The Berlin Stories
Christopher IsherwoodA classic of 20thcentury fiction, The Berlin Stories inspired the Broadway musical and Oscarwinning film Cabaret. First published in the 1930s, The Berlin Stories contains two asto...
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Lord John and the Hand of Devils
Diana Gabaldon“Deftly written, pleasantly concise stories about the ghosts of desire, each with its own discrete merits . . . [Diana] Gabaldon’s strengths are on full display.”Kirkus Reviews Dia...
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The Daddy Diaries
Andy CohenThe Instant New York Times Bestseller!New York Times bestselling author Andy Cohen goes from bottle service to baby bottles in a hilarious, heartwarming, and namedropping account o...
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The Scottish Prisoner
Diana Gabaldon“This could be the worthy Lord John Grey’s breakout novel, as readers are treated to large dollops of Outlander hero Jamie Fraser.”Booklist A captivating return to the world...
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All the White Spaces
Ally WilkesA Bram Stoker Award nominee“Some of the best survival horror we’ve read in years, with a uniquely menacing adversary at its heart.” Vulture, The Best Horror Novels of 2022 “Epic.” ...
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A Change of Affection
Becket CookThe powerful, dramatic story of how a successful Hollywood set designer whose identity was deeply rooted in his homosexuality came to be suddenly and utterly transformed by the pow...
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New Ways to Kill Your Mother
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Bad Habit
Alana S. Portero & Mara Faye Lethem"I urge you, read Alana S. Portero's Bad Habit to fully grasp the degree of adversity, pain, and danger endured by those growingup trans." –Pedro Almodóvar"Raw, unapologe...
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Idyll Hands
Stephanie GayleIn the small, sleepy town of Idyll, Connecticut, Police Chief Thomas Lynch assists police officer Michael Finnegan to uncover clues to his sister's disappearance two decades ago. C...
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Private Rites
Julia ArmfieldFrom the awardwinning author of Our Wives Under the Sea, a speculative reimagining of King Lear, centering three sisters navigating queer love and loss in a drowning worldIt’s been...
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All the Hearts You Eat
Hailey PiperA visceral and heartbreaking work of gothic horror about small town mysteries, local folklore and the things we leave behind when we're gone, from the Bram Stoker Award winning aut...
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Broken Horses
Brandi Carlile#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The critically acclaimed singersongwriter, producer, and sixtime Grammy winner opens up about faith, sexuality, parenthood, and a life shaped by music...
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The One
John MarrsNow on Netflix!The USA Today bestsellerA Wall Street Journal Best Science Fiction Book of 2018“Just try to put this gripping thriller down once you pick it up.” AARP“A shock on eve...
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Fables of John Gay
John GayThis is a Fables charming and beautiful children book also known as fifty one fables in Verse or Fables of John Gay – 1727. It has gay's fables thence shall Nobility inspire Your b...
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A New Ireland
Niall O'DowdIt’s not your father’s Ireland. Not anymore. A story of modern revolution in Ireland told by the founder of IrishCentral, Irish America magazine, and the Irish Voice newspaper...
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The Most Dangerous Branch
David A. KaplanIn the bestselling tradition of The Nine and The Brethren, The Most Dangerous Branch takes us inside the secret world of the Supreme Court. David A. Kaplan, the form...
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Being John Church
Neil S. PlakcyJeff Berman is in freefall. He's been denied tenure, then lost his followup job as a presenter on the History Channel. But rock bottom comes fast and painful when he learns that th...
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In the Absence of Men
Philippe Besson & Frank Wynne'An astonishing love story, beautifully told' Time Out'I am sixteen. I am as old as the century'It is 1916. Vincent is sixteen, on the brink of manhood. ...
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Dear John
Holly DayHow to break up with your boyfriend when your only means of communication are letters?Logan Fleet is working undercover on a onehouse island. A syndicate leader he and his team hav...
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Mundo Cruel
Luis Negron & Suzanne Jill LevineLuis Negrón’s debut collection reveals the intimate world of a small community in Puerto Rico joined together by its transgressive sexuality. The writing straddles the shifting lin...
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Sacrificio
Ernesto Mestre-ReedSet in Cuba in 1998, Sacrificio is a triumphant and mesmeric work of violence, loss, and identity, following a group of young HIVpositive counterrevolutionaries who seek to overth...
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The Lord John Series 4-Book Bundle
Diana GabaldonDiana Gabaldon, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Outlander series, delivers captivating tales of history, intrigue, and suspense that feature one of her most popular cha...
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Martin and John
Dale PeckDale Peck’s debut is a tour de force in which Martin and John find each other again and again: in a trailer park, a highend jewelry store, a Kansas barn, and later, in New York Cit...
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A Ladder to the Sky
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Falconer
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Toward Eternity
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