The Heiress is a comedy play by the British

Kingdom of Great Britain

The former Kingdom of Great Britain, sometimes described as the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain', That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of GREAT BRITAIN. was a sovereign...

 playwright

Playwright

A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

 and soldier John Burgoyne

John Burgoyne

General John Burgoyne was a British army officer, politician and dramatist. He first saw action during the Seven Years' War when he participated in several battles, mostly notably during the Portugal Campaign of 1762....

. The play debuted at the Drury Lane Theatre on 14 January 1786. It concerns the engagement of Lord Gayville to Miss Alscrip a fashionable woman he believes to be an heiress

Beneficiary

A beneficiary in the broadest sense is a natural person or other legal entity who receives money or other benefits from a benefactor. For example: The beneficiary of a life insurance policy, is the person who receives the payment of the amount of insurance after the death of the insured...

. Gayville later discovers that the woman who really stands to inherit the fortune is his true love Miss Clifford.. The play was an enormous success, running for 31 performances in its initial season and being revived again the following year. The play was initially anonymous

Anonymous work

Anonymous works are works, such as art or literature, that have an anonymous, undisclosed, or unknown creator or author. In the United States it is legally defined as "a work on the copies or phonorecords of which no natural person is identified as author."...

, but Burgoyne was soon widely reported to be the author and he acknowledged this after the play's debut.