Cumberland, Richard (1732–1811)

English dramatist. He wrote more than 50 plays, ranging from tragedy to sentimental comedy and comic opera, the most successful being The West Indian (1771), produced by David Garrick at Covent Garden in London.

He also wrote poems and prose works 1754–1811, including his memoirs (1806–07), and a source book on 18th-century theatre.

Richard Sheridan, whom he had offended, caricatured him as Sir Fretful Plagiary in The Critic (1779).