Byatt, Henry
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author, Theatre.
(?1855-1934) UK playwright and author, born Harry Byatt Robinson, which he shortened by deed poll to Harry Byatt in 1900; little is known of him beyond his published works, which include meretricious dramas set to music like The Golden Age; or, Pierrot's Sacrifice: An Original Idyllic Musical Play (1898 chap), which sentimentally transposes Pierrot into the Golden Age of a much earlier tradition, or The Testament of Judas (1908), a fantasy about Judas Iscariot. Purple and White: A Romance (1905) is set 60 years after the end of the "Great War", which had ravaged Europe during the teens of the twentieth century, leaving Germany and Russia dominant; Heinrich, a Christ-like descendant of the German Kaisers, rules the world, which has become a Utopia, though plotters lurk. The Flight of Icarus (1907) rewrites this material into a Near Future tale in which the world comes to be ruled by an apostate Jew with supernatural powers named Michael the Cohen, false warden of the Word of God. The Real Man (1909) farcically repeats much of this material in a Satire on anarchists whose leader, an impostor who has assumed this role after an Identity Exchange, almost takes over Britain. [JC/MA]
Henry Byatt
born ?1855
died Brighton, Sussex: 11 January 1934
works
- The Golden Age; or, Pierrot's Sacrifice: An Original Idyllic Musical Play (London: Joseph Williams, 1898) [play: chap: pb/]
- Purple and White: A Romance (London: R A Everett and Co, 1905) [hb/]
- The Flight of Icarus (London: Sisley's, 1907) [hb/uncredited]
- The Testament of Judas (London: John Long, 1908) [hb/]
- The Real Man (London: John Long, 1909) [hb/]
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