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Sydney Grundy

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SYDNEY GRUNDY (1848-), English dramatist, was born at Manchester on the 23rd of March 1848, son of Alderman Charles Sydney Grundy. He was educated at Owens College, Manchester, and was called to the bar in 1869, practising in Manchester until 1876. His farce, A Little Change, was produced at the Haymarket Theatre in 1872. He became well known as an adapter of plays, among his early successes in this direction being The Snowball (Strand Theatre, 1879) from Oscar, ou le mari qui trompe sa femme by MM. Scribe and Duvergne, and In Honour Bound (1880) from Scribe's Une Channe. In 1887 he made a popular success with The Bells of Haslemere, written with Mr H. Pettitt and produced at the Adelphi. In1889-1890he produced two ingenious original comedies, A White Lie (Court Theatre) and A Fool's Paradise (Gaiety Theatre), which had been played two years earlier at Greenwich as The MouseTrap. These were followed by Sowing the Wind (Comedy, 1893), An Old Jew (Garrick, 1894), and by an adaptation of Octave Feuillet's Montjoye as A Bunch of Violets (Haymarket, 1894). In 1894 he produced The New Woman and The Slaves of the Ring; in 1895, The Greatest of These, played by Mr and Mrs Kendal at the Garrick Theatre; The Degenerates (Haymarket, 1899), and A Debt of Honour (St James's 1900). Among Mr Grundy's most successful adaptations were the charming Pair of Spectacles (Garrick, 1890) from Les Petits Oiseaux of MM. Labiche and Delacour. Others were A Village Priest (Haymarket, 1890) from Le Secret de la terreuse, a melodrama by MM. Busnach and Cauvin; A Marriage of Convenience (Haymarket, 1897) from Un Mariage de Louis X V, by Alex. Dumas, pere, The Silver Key (Her Majesty's, 1897) from his Mlle de Belle-isle, and The Musqueteers (1899) from the same author's novel; Frocks and Frills (Haymarket, 1902) from the Doigts de fees of MM. Scribe and Legouve; The Garden of Lies (St James's Theatre, 1904) from Mr Justus Miles Forman's novel; Business is Business (His Majesty's Theatre, 1905), a rather free adaptation from Octave Mirbeau's Les Affaires sont les affaires; and The Diplomatists (Royalty Theatre, 1905) from La Poudre aux yeux, by Labiche.