SOURCE: Bowyer, John Wilson. “‘It Is a Woman's.’” In The Celebrated Mrs. Centlivre, pp. 41-91. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1952.

In the following excerpt, Bowyer discusses Centlivre's first period of success (1700-03), when the playwright began to attract public attention as an author. Bowyer highlights her adaptations of earlier plays and her efforts to establish herself as female author.

At the end of 1700 Mrs. Centlivre was well established in London. Her friends included Tom Brown, Abel Boyer, William Ayloffe, George Farquhar, Mrs. Jane Wiseman, Mrs. De la Rivière Manley, Mrs. Catharine Trotter, Mrs. Sarah Fyge Egerton, Mrs. Mary Pix, Lady Sarah Peirce. She probably had already met William Burnaby, John Oldmixon, Richard Steele, Nicholas Rowe, Charles Johnson, and others with whom she was to be associated later. These names may not seem important in the whole history of English letters, but they were not to be...