DALY, JOHN AUGUSTIN ( 1838-99). An• American playwright and theatrical manager. He was born at Plymouth, N. C.. and educated at Norfolk, Va., and in the public schools of New York City. He was dramatic critic for the Sunday Courier in 1859, and held similar posi tions on the Express, Citizen, Sun, and Times for some years. Meanwhile he was producing adap tations of several plays, and in 1867 his first original success, Under the Gaslight, was brought out at the New York Theatre. In 1869 he opened in Twenty-Fourth Street the playhouse known as the Fifth Avenue Theatre, which with such `stars' as Fanny Davenport, Mrs. Scott Siddons, E. L. Davenport, and Clara Morris, quickly be came very popular. After the destruction of this theatre by fire and an interval of a few months in another, he opened. in 1874, Daly's Fifth Avenue Theatre. which he managed till 1877. In 1879 be returned, after a year of study in Europe, and opened the house since known as Daly's Theatre on Broadway, near Thirtieth Street, which he controlled until the time of his sudden death in Paris. Mr. Daly had in his compamy at various times many of the best known players in America. For years Miss Ada
Behan was his leading actress. Several times he went with his whole company to California, to England, and to Germany and France. In 1S93 he leased a theatre in London. He wrote many adaptations from German and French plays, one of his earliest efforts being from Mosenthal's Deborah. in 1862. In the long list of works which he wrote or adapted are: Divorce, Pique, Under the Gaslight. The Railroad of Love, Seren-Ttecnty-Eight, The Great Love on Crutches, and The Last Word (1890). Mr. Daly was especially noted for excellence in scenic presentation, and his Shakespearean revivals have received warm praise both in this country and in England. In 1894 he was presented with the Ltetare Medal of the University of Notre Dame, Ind. He was a great book-lover, and made a remarkable collection of plates on biblical subjects, Thackeray. etc., which was sold at auction in the settlement of his estate. Be sides his plays and dramatic adaptations, he was the author of ll•offington: A Tribute to the Actress and the Woman (18S8), and various minor articles.