Henry Brooke (Q387405)

Overall: Many of Brooke's works reflect the sentimentality characteristic of the mid-18th c. A patriot Whig with staunch anti-Catholic protestant tendencies, Brooke received government censure for his politically controversial works; his play Gustavus Vasa: the Deliverer of his Country, and his satirical opera Jack the Giant-Queller, were banned for their subversive content. He was very active in Ireland's political life, publishing a number of zealous pamphlets. The novel The Fool of Quality is his best-known work. The DNB characterizes Brooke as "a representative of the tightly-knit Anglo-Irish class of the mid-eighteenth century and a man of letters trying his hand at various literary genres."