Richard Brinsley Peake

"[1] Richard Brinsley Peake was born in Gerrard Street in Soho, London, the son of Richard Peake, who for forty years worked in the Treasury Office of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in London.

On leaving Heath's employ in 1817 Peake began to write for the theatre; his first play was The Bridge that Carries Us Safe Over, produced at the English Opera House in 1817, and which was quickly followed by a farce, Wanted, a Governess.

His 1823 play Presumption; or, the Fate of Frankenstein, was seen by Mary Shelley and her father William Godwin on 29 August 1823 at the English Opera House, shortly after her return to England.

[3] To capitalise on the success of the play, Godwin arranged for his daughter's novel Frankenstein to be reprinted in two volumes with emendations by himself.

Peake wrote the accompanying text for the picture-book French Characteristic Costumes (1816); a comedic book of Cockney sports entitled Snobson's 'Seasons' (1838); Cartouche, the Celebrated French Robber (1844) in three-volumes; and a two-volume biography of a theatrical family, Memoirs of the Colman Family (1841).