J. Comyns Carr

In 1877 he became a director of the Grosvenor Gallery and promoting Pre-Raphaelite painters and other important exhibitors, such as James McNeill Whistler, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones.

[4] In 1873 in Dresden, Carr married author Alice Laura Vansittart née Strettell (1850–1927), a novelist and designer.

Alice designed the bold costume that Ellen Terry wore as Lady Macbeth, and in which John Singer Sargent painted her in 1889.

[2] Carr was also the author of dramatic works, beginning with several light comedies in the early 1880s for the German Reed Entertainments at St George's Hall.

[2] He also wrote numerous plays and adapted a number of French plays, such as Frou-Frou, produced at the Princess's Theatre, London (1881); a stage adaptation of Far From the Madding Crowd co-authored with Thomas Hardy (1881); Hugh Conway's Called Back (1884), which was very successful for the actor–manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree; Dark Days; Boys Together; In the Days of the Duke; A Fireside Hamlet; The United Pair; The Naturalist (1887, an operetta with music by Charles King Hall); The Friar; and Forgiveness.

[2] At the same time, his King Arthur (1895), a blank verse play inspired by the writings of Thomas Malory and Alfred Tennyson, as well as by the visual images of the Pre-Raphaelites, was produced by Henry Irving in the Lyceum Theatre.

It starred Irving and Ellen Terry, with music composed by Arthur Sullivan and sets, costumes and artwork designed by Carr's friend Edward Burne-Jones.

Also for Irving's company, in 1897 he produced an English version of Madame Sans-Gêne by Sardou and Émile Moreau in 1897, which played on both sides of the Atlantic.

[9] Carr's adaptation of Oliver Twist was produced by Herbert Beerbohm Tree at His Majesty's Theatre, London (1905).

[2] Carr's Tristram and Iseult (1906), a pseudo-medieval drama, was produced at the Adelphi Theatre starring Matheson Lang, Lily Brayton and Oscar Asche.

Carr's theory of the play was that Jasper, under the influence of opium, attempted to act upon his murderous impulses, but Drood, overhearing his uncle's ravings, was able to escape.