George Soane

George Soane (1790–1860) was an English writer and dramatist. George Soane (left) with his elder brother John, 1805 portrait by William Owen in Sir John Soane's Museum, London.

Life The younger son of John Soane, he was born in London. He graduated B.A. from Pembroke College, Cambridge, in 1811. Shortly afterwards he married Agnes Boaden, against his parents' wishes. His writing career was not enough to earn a living. Soane fell into debt, and was imprisoned. In 1814 he was editing the Theatrical Inquisitor, but also served time for fraud. He gave evidence on the King's Bench Prison, from his experience of it, to a committee of enquiry in 1815.

In The Champion during September 1815 Soane attacked his father's reputation as an architect, in two anonymous articles. His mother died shortly afterwards. These pieces led to a family rupture, and indirectly to the foundation of Sir John Soane's Museum.

Soane died on 12 July 1860. The Bohemian: a Tragedy, London, 1817. The Falls of Clyde: a Melodrama, London, 1817. The Innkeeper's Daughter, Drury Lane, 1817. Rob Roy, the Gregarach. A romantick drama, in three acts, etc, Drury Lane, 1818. Self-Sacrifice: a Melodrama, London, 1819. The Dwarf of Naples: a Tragi-comedy, London, 1819. The Hebrew: a Drama, London, 1820. Pride shall have a Fall: a Comedy, London, 1824. Faustus, or the Demon of Drachenfels, London, 1825. Aladdin: a Fairy Opera, London, 1826. The Night Dancers: an Opera, London, 1846. The Island of Calypso: an Operatic Masque, London, 1850.

Other works Soane's other works included: He supplied letterpress in 1820, translating some extracts of Goethe's German, when the illustrations by Moritz Retzsch to Faust I were published in London (plates copied by Henry Moses). He was also credited by George Willis as one of the anonymous translators of Popular Tales and Romances of the Northern Nations (1823).