The Fair Penitent is Nicholas Rowe's stage adaptation of the tragedy The Fatal Dowry, the Philip Massinger and Nathan Field collaboration first published in 1632.
Rowe's adaptation, premiered onstage in 1702 and first published in 1703, was a great popular success through much of the 18th century, and was praised by critics as demanding as Samuel Johnson ("There is scarcely any work of any poet so interesting by the fable and so delightful in the language").
[3] Where the original "concentrates largely on the legal and political affairs of the cuckolded husband," Rowe focused far more directly on the domestic tragedy of Calista's infidelity.
[5] The production also included incidental music and arias written by German-born Baroque composer Jakob Greber for his mistress, operatic soprano Margherita de L'Épine.
[6] The play was revived at both of the major London theatres of the era, Drury Lane and Covent Garden; the former production starred Mrs. Siddons as Calista.