English Restoration dramatist. Rowe's play productions include The Ambitious Stepmother (1700), Tamerlane (1701), The Fair Penitent (1703), The Biter (1704), Ulysses (1705), The Royal Convert (1707), The Tragedy of Jane Shore (1714), and The Tragedy of the Lady Jane Gray (1715). Samuel Johnson's Life of Rowe first appeared as a preface to the volume of Works of the English Poets (1779-81) devoted to Rowe and Thomas Tickell.