Biography

Bronson Crocker Howard (October 7, 1842 – August 4, 1908) was an American dramatist. Howard was born in Detroit where his father Charles Howard was Mayor in 1849. He prepared for college at New Haven, Conn., but instead of entering Yale he turned to Journalism in New York City. From 1867 to 1872 he worked on several newspapers, among them the Evening Mail and the Tribune. As early as 1864 he had written a dramatic piece (Fantine) which was played in Detroit. His first important play was Saratoga, produced by Augustin Daly in 1870. It was very successful and became the first of a long series of pieces which gave Howard a leading position among American playwrights.

He married a sister of Sir Charles Wyndham, the English actor, and he had homes in New Rochelle, New York and London, England where some of his plays were no less popular than in America. Bronson Howard was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

The English newspaper The Yorkshire Evening Post reported in 1894: Mr Bronson Howard, the American playwright, calls the first stage of his work, "the smoking stage." He smokes for weeks, even months, only making notes.

He died, aged 65, in Avon-by-the-Sea, New Jersey, where he had gone to regain his strength.