She finds life with Arthur's grandfather and great-aunt, Sir William and Lady Trafalgar, unbearably dull, and they detest her loud and unrestrained personality.

It depicts the melodrama that was popular at the time, but Tom Wrench's play is a reference to the new, more realistic drawing-room comedies that were beginning to be staged at the Prince of Wales's Theatre.

It ran for 131 performances, and starred Mary Mannering in the title role of Rose Trelawny, Hilda Spong, Mrs. Thomas W. Whiffen (whose husband also appeared in the cast), and Elizabeth Tyree.

The cast of the 1975 production, at Lincoln Center, included Mary Beth Hurt, Mandy Patinkin, John Lithgow and, in her Broadway debut, Meryl Streep.

(Helen McCrory as Rose Trelawny, Ben Miles as Arthur Gower, Adam Kotz as Tom Wrench)[10] An adaptation by Patrick Marber, directed by Joe Wright played at the Donmar Warehouse in 2013.

In 1916, the play was adapted into a silent film Trelawny of the Wells directed by Cecil Hepworth and starring Alma Taylor, Stewart Rome, and Violet Hopson.