Playwright. A colorful author of England's Restoration period, noted for his bombastic blood-and-thunder tragedies. His blank verse drama "The Rival Queens" (1677) was popular until the 19th Century. Lee was probably born in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, the son of a Presbyterian minister. After earning a BA degree at Trinity College, Cambridge (1668) he went to London to become an actor, but chronic stage fright forced him to give up this ambition. His earliest dramas, "Nero, Emperor of Rome" (1675), "Sophonisba" (1676), and "Gloriana" (1676), were influenced by John Dryden, who repaid the compliment by inviting Lee to collaborate on his play "Oedipus" (1678). "The Rival Queens" made his reputation as a bloodthirsty sensationalist, though his bursts of exaggerated violence were tempered by real tenderness and gems of beautifully crafted poetry. His success in this vein continued with "Mithridates, King of Pontus" (1678), "Theodosius, or the Force of Love" (1680), "Caesar Borgia" (1680), and "Constantine the Great" (1684). Lee's only comedy, "The Princess of Cleve" (1681), has the same outlandish spirit of his tragedies. At least once it was deemed he had gone too far: "Lucius Junius Brutus" (1681) was banned after three performances for some alleged anti-monarchy lines. Lee withdrew his unproduced "The Massacre of Paris" (published in 1690) and turned to his friend Dryden for help; they co-wrote "The Duke of Guise" (1683) with staunch royalist sentiments. The feverish extravagance of Lee's plays was matched by a turbulent personality. Falling in with the debauched clique surrounding his patron the Earl of Rochester, he recklessly embraced their dissipation while rumors circulated that he was going insane. Dryden recalled Lee's response to a second-rate poet who told him it was easy to write like a madman: "No, 'tis very difficult to write like a madman, but 'tis a very easy matter to write like a fool". In 1684 he suffered a breakdown and was incarcerated in the Bedlam asylum; he lamented, "They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me". Lee was released as cured in 1689 only to die during a drunken binge three years later, having written nothing more for the stage. He was given a pauper's burial at the now defunct Portugal Street Cemetery in London. His Collected Plays were first published in 1722.