Written in defiance of Jeremy Collier and the budding fashion forsentimental drama, this late Restoration comedy exposes the reformedrake Loveless to the temptations of London and the charms of a merrywidow, neither of which he is able to withstand. More memorable thanthe straying husband, however, is Restoration comedy's ultimatefollower of fashion, Lord Foppington, who defends himself in theEpilogue by observing that no highwayman or Jacobite was ever welldressed. As the introduction to this edition argues, Sir John Vanbrugh- dramatist, architect and member of the influential Kit Cat...

This collaborative masterpiece of hilarious city comedy was performedby the Children of the Revels at the Blackfriars playhouse in 1605. Thestory is of an allegorical simplicity that lends itself to satire ofcivic mores and traditions as well as to parody of the sentimental, idealising London comedy presented at the amphitheatres in the suburbs: Goldsmith Touchstone, an upright London citizen, has one modest and oneambitious daughter, one righteous and one disreputable apprentice;virtue is rewarded, ruthlessness comes to grief - and receives adrenching in the muddy Thames. The introduction...

More successful in its day than The Way of the World, which is nowaccounted Congreve's best play, Love for Love (1695) is a comical farcemanifesting the verbal polish and the theatrical wit that audiences soenjoy in Congreve. Valentine, Sir Sampson's dissolute eldest son, findshimself at a standstill; the only way out of his financial difficultiesis to give in to his father's pressure to renounce his right ofinheritance. While this suggestion immediately increases the chances ofhis bluff younger brother Ben on the marriage mart, Valentine's ownchances with his beloved Angelica would...

Published in 1575 and acted at Christ's College, Cambridge, probably as early as King Edward V's reign, the drama of Grandma Gurton and her lost sewing needle, which is finally retrieved from the bottom of her servant Hodge's breeches, is an outstanding example of mid-Tudor comedy. Although a university production, the play's doggerel rhymes, its village characters and their dialect speech, its seemingly innocuous plot and its Rabelaisian humour are the very opposite of academic or neo-classical. Yet its anonymous author's ingenuity manifests itself at every turn, not least in the multiple...

Written for the adult players at the open-air Swan theatre in 1613, this master-piece of Jacobean city comedy signals its ironic natureeven in the title: chaste maids, like most other goods and people inLondon's busiest commercial area, are likely to be fake. Money is moreimportant than either happiness or honour; and the most covetedcommodities to be bought with it are sex and social prestige. Middletoninterweaves the fortunes of four families, who either seek to marrytheir children off as profitably as possible, to stop having any morefor fear of poverty, or to acquire some in order to...

'Let him kill a lion with a pestle, husband; let him kill a lion with a pestle.'

So exclaims the Grocer's wife who, with her husband and servants, is attending one of the London's elite playhouses where a theatre comany has just begun to perform. Peeved at the fact that all the plays they see are satires on the lives and values of London's citizenry, the Grocer and his wife interrupt and demand a play that instead contains chivalric quests and courtly love. What's more, they nominate their apprentice Rafe to take on the hero's role of the knight in this entirely new play.

The...

The Tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry is a Jacobean closet drama by Elizabeth Tanfield Cary. First published in 1613, it was the first work by a woman to be published under her real name. Never performed during Cary's lifetime, and apparently never intended for performance, the Senecan revenge tragedy tells the story of Mariam, the second wife of Herod. The play exposes and explores the themes of sex, divorce, betrayal, murder, and Jewish society under Herod's tyrannous rule. A new introduction includes recent criticism and new developments in theatre history and scholarship. A...

One of the most controversal plays in drama literature, this play's treatment of the subject of incest and the portrayal of the morality of the protagonist has made this play one of the most studied in history. It is one of the most psychologically powerful and intellectually challenging tragedies produced in the early years of King Charles I's reign and 20th-century directors have found inspiration from the play in theatrical and film adaptations and productions.

In the plot Annabella, accompanied by her down-to-earth nurse, is introduced to a series of suitors to her hand. She...

This classic comedy of manners portrays intrigue, gossip, and social climbing among the leisure class of 1770s London and explores the deceptive guises of society and fickle nature of reputations.

Middle-aged and a wealthy bachelor, Sir Peter Teazle marries a young and beautiful daughter of a country squire. The "School for Scandal" socialites fill their days with the dissemination of malicious gossip with the consequences of destroyed reputations and marriages held out as pure entertainment. Lady Teazle is welcomed to their circle by becoming the object of nasty rumors and...