Edward Howard (baptised 1624 – 1712)[1] was an English dramatist and author of the Restoration era.
[4] Howard complained that when the actors in his Six Days' Adventure encountered a hostile audience response, they neglected "that diligence required to their parts.
"[6] He "seems to have struck his contemporaries as the epitome of the literary fop...."[7] In a quarrel over the Change of Crowns matter, actor and fellow playwright John Lacy reportedly called Howard "more a fool than a poet."
Thomas Shadwell caricatured Howard as the "poet Ninny" in his first play, The Sullen Lovers (1668).
Restoration dramatists often reworked the plays of earlier playwrights; "Ned" Howard was accused of relying on work by James Shirley.