Treason, wit and scurrility: Fielding’s Cibber letters

Abstract

This article proposes a solution to the vexed question of the authorship of a famous eighteenth-century hoax. We can be certain that Theophilus Cibber was not the author of his purported Apology. But who was? Henry Fielding has always been a main suspect, and it must have delighted Joel Schechter to discover evidence supporting the claims for his share in the authorship. Hoaxes, though, are perilous territory. Who, exactly, is the hoaxer, and who is being hoaxed?Never printed before, the letters introduced here reveal that Henry Fielding and James Ralph co-authored a counterfeit autobiography of actor Theophilus Cibber. The book they wrote and attributed to ‘Mr. T……… C……’ contains satiric criticism of theatre censorship, cartels and Colley Cibber’s autobiography.