George Alexander Stevens

George Alexander Stevens and Mrs Paul Sandby (Paul Sandby)

George Alexander Stevens (1710 – 6 September 1780) was an English actor, playwright, poet, and songwriter. He was born in the parish of St. Andrews, in Holborn, a neighbourhood of London. After spending many years as a travelling actor, he performed for the theatre in Covent Garden (now the Royal Opera House).

Stevens was most famous in his lifetime for his Lecture on Heads, a satirical "lecture" on heads and fashion, which parodied the popularity of physiognomy. The lecture was first performed in 1764, and became an immediate success; he went on to perform it on tour throughout Great Britain, in Ireland, and in the American colonies at Boston and Philadelphia.

He was also known as popular song-writer, especially known for his bawdy drinking-songs and patriotic songs (such as Liberty-Hall and The Briton). Many of both kinds were collected in his Songs, comic and satyrical (1788).

Stevens also authored several dramatic pieces for the stage, a novel entitled Tom Fool, and a satire, The Birthday of Folly. He used the pen-name "A Lady",^[1] for part of The Female Inquisition.^[2]

He died in Baldock in Hertfordshire.

References

• Thomas Campbell (1819), Specimens of the British Poets, pp. 436–440. Available through Google Books Library Project.

External links

• Works by George Alexander Stevens at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about George Alexander Stevens at Internet Archive
• G. A. Stevens at the University of Texas English Poetry Full-Text Database
• George Alexander Stevens. The celebrated lecture on heads, broadside, 1765 Sept. 12, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts