The Welch Heiress

About the show

Lord Melcourt is engaged to marry an heiress for the sake of her money and the naïve and romantic Miss Plinlimmon is puzzled by the fact that his behaviour does not live up to her expectations of the ideal lover. In fact he does not care for the girl's liveliness and eventually breaks off the engagement, whereupon his friend Mr Fashion takes his place. A farcical subplot involves Mr Phrensy, a writer who cannot make the world agree that he is a genius. Even the false news of his death in the papers does not lead to a revival of his reputation and he therefore plans to have a second item published, announcing that he died while visiting Melcourt for the wedding. Meanwhile he masquerades as a friend of Phrensy's, raising subscriptions for an edition of his collected works.