For David Garrick, the acquiring and reading of books were sidelines to a strenuous professional life as the most outstanding English actor and theater manager of the eighteenth century. His many-sided genius extended to writing 23 dramatic pieces; he substantially adapted 26 others and had a lesser hand in 18 more. He composed at least 459 items of minor verse. He also kept up a prolific correspondence, with letters surviving to as many as three hundred people. As his career prospered he developed a vigorous social life, gaining acceptance as a member of a wide range of social circles.

His first biographer, Thomas Davies, in Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick, Esq. (1780), opined that

his knowledge was much greater than could be expected from a man so beset with various business. . . . A mind like his was continually improving from the company with which he was constantly surrounded. His house was a...