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Sir Richard Steele ( – 1 September 1729) was an Anglo-Irish writer, playwright and politician best known as the co-founder of the magazine The Spectator alongside his close friend Joseph Addison.
His father died when he was four, and his mother a year later. Steele was largely raised by his uncle and aunt, Henry Gascoigne (secretary to James Butler, 1st Duke of Ormonde), and Lady Katherine Mildmay.
A member of the Protestant gentry, he was educated at Charterhouse School, where he first met Addison. After starting at Christ Church, Oxford, he went on to Merton College, Oxford, then joined the Life Guards of the Household Cavalry in order to support King William's wars against France. He was commissioned in 1697, and rose to the rank of captain within two years.
Steele wrote a comedy that same year titled The Funeral. This play met with wide success and was performed at Drury Lane, bringing him to the attention of the King and the Whig party. Next, Steele wrote The Lying Lover (1703), one of the first sentimental comedies, but a failure on stage.
Steele was a member of the Whig Kit-Kat Club. Both Steele and Addison became closely associated with Child's Coffee-house in St Paul's Churchyard.
Steele left the army in 1705, perhaps due to the death of the 34th Foot's commanding officer, Lord Lucas, which limited his opportunities of promotion.
Also in 1705, Steele married a widow, Margaret Stretch, who died in the following year. After Margaret's death, a slave plantation she owned in Barbados came into the ownership of Steele. At her funeral he met his second wife, Mary Steele, whom he nicknamed "Prue" and married in 1707. In the course of their courtship and marriage, he wrote over 400 letters to her.
Steele wrote The Tender Husband (1705) with contributions from Addison, and later that year wrote the prologue to The Mistake, by John Vanbrugh, also an important member of the Kit-Kat Club.
In 1706 Steele was appointed to a position in the household of Prince George of Denmark, consort of Anne, Queen of Great Britain. He also gained the favour of Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford.
The Tatler, Steele's first public journal, first came out on 12 April 1709, and appeared three times a week: on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Steele edited this periodical under the pseudonym Isaac Bickerstaff and gave the Bickerstaff character an entire, fully developed personality. "Bickerstaff's" best Tatler columns were published by Steele as the book Isaac Bickerstaff, Physician and Astrologer later that year .
Steele described his motive in writing The Tatler as "to expose the false arts of life, to pull off the disguises of cunning, vanity, and affectation, and to recommend a general simplicity in our dress, our discourse, and our behaviour". Steele founded the magazine, and although he and Addison collaborated, Steele wrote the majority of the essays; Steele wrote roughly 188 of the 271 total and Addison 42, with 36 representing the pair's collaborative works. While Addison contributed to The Tatler, it is widely regarded as Steele's work.
The Tatler was closed down in early 1711 to avoid the complications of running a Whig publication that had come under Tory attack. Addison and Steele then founded The Spectator in 1711 and also The Guardian in 1713.
Steele had an illegitimate child, Elizabeth Ousley, whom he later adopted.
He wrote a preface to Addison's 1716 comedy play The Drummer.
His wife Mary died in 1718, at a time when she was considering separation. Their daughter, Elizabeth (Steele's only surviving legitimate child), married John Trevor, 3rd Baron Trevor.
Steele ended his parliamentary career in March 1722.
While at Drury Lane, Steele wrote and directed the sentimental comedy The Conscious Lovers, which was an immediate hit on stage in November 1722.
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