Profession: dramatist

O’Casey is widely regarded as one of Ireland’s greatest dramatist. Shaw, a friend, admired him. He and Yeats had an ambivalent relationship, each needing the other, O’Casey’s relationship with Yeats’ Abbey Theatre starting very fruitfully, but ending messily, and contributing to O’Casey’s move to England. Yeats did however regard him as a genius. Beckett and he were mutual admirers, and corresponded without meeting; Joyce, O’Faolain and Kavanagh were also correspondents, and O’Neill (like Anderson, met in the U.S.) a friend. Hitchcock enthused about a script of O’Casey’s over dinner, but never contacted him again.

Bjørnson and Ibsen met as aspiring writers; though Bjørnson became a generous supporter, their friendship later foundered, only reviving when Ibsen’s son married Bjørnson’s daughter. Joyce, a fan, wrote to him in Norwegian (Ibsen had no English). Grieg was met in Rome, and though Ibsen invited him much later to write the music that made his name, their natural affinity was always overshadowed by Ibsen’s outward coldness. Anderson, meanwhile, liked him, but not his work. Strindberg and Ibsen never met, but pursued an extraordinary feud, Ibsen keeping a portrait of his enemy in his study to spur himself on.

Wycherley was a popular (if not great) poet and playwright, a wit and a rake: one of the literary characters of his age. He turned down an approach from Dryden to collaborate on writing a comedy, was a close friend of Locke, and encouraged the young Pope as a writer. Pope helped the elderly Wycherley revise his poems for publication (it’s sometimes alleged that Pope rewrote more than he should have). This friendship, starting when Pope was sixteen, was conducted entirely by letter, and eventually cooled, probably as a result of an essay Pope published.

Diderot was a friend and supporter. David’s grandfather, an architect, took on the stone-mason Sedaine as his protégé, and in return Sedaine took the young David into his own family. He was a regular guest of d’Épinay.

The astronomer Wilhem Beer and the composer Giacomo (originally Jacob) Meyerbeer were his brothers. Heine and Hiller were companions in Paris (Heine overstating his praise for one of Beer’s plays), as was his chess-playing partner Mendelssohn.