Irene (play)

Irene is a Neoclassical tragedy written between 1726 and 1749 by Samuel Johnson. It has the distinction of being the work Johnson considered his greatest failure.^[1] Since his death, the critical consensus has been that he was right to think so.^[2]

Irene was Johnson's only play, and was first performed on 6 February 1749 in a production by his friend and former pupil David Garrick. The play was a commercial success and earned Johnson more money than anything else he had written up to that point. It was never revived during his lifetime, and there is no subsequent evidence of any other full-scale productions of Irene anywhere until 1999.^[3] making it one of the most unsuccessful plays ever written by a major author.^{[citation needed]}