In the field of Romantic studies, starting with the advent of new historicism in the 1980s there emerged considerable interest in texts traditionally viewed as artistic failures. That was linked to the belief in the need of “breaking down the barriers between ‘literary’ texts and other genres and questioning the hierarchy of ‘major’ and ‘minor’ writers set up by critics inspired by modernist aesthetics” (Franklin 2007: 83). Simultaneously, under the influence of Marxist cultural materialism texts were viewed as records of ideological conflicts of the time. This opened up new areas of research, one of them being popular theatre, which, in turn, shed a new light on the works of “canonical” writers. Even if one reverts to a more traditional, humanist critical position these insights are meaningful when they allow us to understand why a given literary work failed to succeed.

S.T. Coleridge's drama Zapolya offers an intriguing test case. Why did a perceptive critic of Shakespeare fail as a playwright? It is generally agreed that his plays belong to his “minor” works. Nonetheless, his tragedy Remorse achieved a relative stage success at Drury Lane in 1813. While Zapolya was never staged in the patent theatres, its melodramatic adaptation by Thomas Dibdin entitled Zapolya; or, The War Wolf was produced at the Royal Circus and Surrey Theatre with a considerable success within three months of its publication in 1817.