English dramatist, novelist, journalist, and actor.

The son of a peddler, Holcroft worked as a stableboy, cobbler, and teacher before he was able to make his living as a writer. He is remembered for his melodrama The Road to Ruin (performed 1792, often revived); his translation of Beaumarchais's play Le Mariage de Figaro (Paris, 1784) under the title The Follies of a Day (performed 1784), in which Holcroft played the part of Figaro; and his autobiography, edited in 1816 by his friend William Hazlitt. This autobiography tells the story of a life of struggle against adversity and reveals the gentleness and humour that won him the friendship of such leading early Romantic writers as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt, and William Godwin.