100px|Title page from The Author's Farce

The Author's Farce is a play by the English playwright and novelist Henry Fielding, first performed on 30 March 1730 at the Little Theatre, Haymarket. Written in response to the Theatre Royal's rejection of his earlier plays, The Author's Farce was Fielding's first theatrical success. The first and second acts deal with the attempts of the central character, Harry Luckless, to woo his landlady's daughter, and his efforts to make money by writing plays. In the second act, he finishes a puppet theatre play titled The Pleasures of the Town, about the Goddess Nonsense's choice of a husband from allegorical representatives of theatre and other literary genres. After its rejection by one theatre, Luckless's play is staged at another. The third act becomes a play within a play, in which the characters in the puppet play are portrayed by humans. The Author's Farce ends with a merging of the play's and the puppet show's realities. The play established Fielding as a popular London playwright, and the press reported that seats were in great demand. Although largely ignored by critics until the 20th century, most agree that the play is primarily a commentary on events in Fielding's life, signalling his transition from older forms of comedy to the new satire of his contemporaries. (more...)

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_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

610:

Heraclius was crowned Byzantine Emperor, after having personally beheaded the previous emperor Phocas. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraclius

1789:

French Revolution: Upset about the high price and scarcity of bread, thousands of Parisian women and their various allies marched on the royal palace at Versailles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Women%27s_March_on_Versailles

1908:

Prince Ferdinand became the first Tsar of Bulgaria since the Ottoman invasion in the 14th century. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_I_of_Bulgaria

1962:

Dr. No, the first in the James Bond film series, was released. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._No_%28film%29

1973:

Seven nations signed the European Patent Convention, providing an autonomous legal system according to which European patents are granted. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Patent_Convention

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

amber (noun): 1. Translucent fossilized tree resin, generally yellow or orange but sometimes blue, often used as jewelry. 2. (in British English) The middle light in a set of three traffic lights, between the red and the green lights. 3. (in biology, biochemistry and genetics) The RNA codon UAG, which stops the third stage of protein production, translation http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/amber

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

The only real hope of people today is probably a renewal of our certainty that we are rooted in the earth and, at the same time, in the cosmos. This awareness endows us with the capacity for self-transcendence. Politicians at international forums may reiterate a thousand times that the basis of the new world order must be universal respect for human rights, but it will mean nothing as long as this imperative does not derive from the respect of the miracle of Being, the miracle of the universe, the miracle of nature, the miracle of our own existence. Only someone who submits to the authority of the universal order and of creation, who values the right to be a part of it and a participant in it, can genuinely value himself and his neighbors, and thus honor their rights as well. --Václav Havel http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/V%C3%A1clav_Havel