Since its first appearance in 1706, The Recruiting Officer has remained a scathing satire of military recruitment. George Farquhar knew the subject well, since he had been involved himself in the tricks and intimidation that enlisted recruits for Queen Anne's army in the War of Spanish Succession from 1703-1705. In Farquhar's play, two recruiting officers compete for recruits in the same locale. Recruiting in those years required more than patriotism and the lure of glory: it relied on bribery, alcohol, and the whole armory of deceit. Farquhar's play makes connections explicit, further...
Since its first appearance in 1706, The Recruiting Officer has remained a scathing satire of military recruitment. George Farquhar knew the subject we...
The Beggar's Opera introduced to theater the ballad-opera and an immortal cast of characters. The Peachums, employers of a company of pickpockets, shoplifters, and thieves, raised their daughter Polly for finer things, but she has done a dreadful deed. She has married for love. Her husband is Macheath, so exquisite a robber he might have been a lawyer or lord, and so devoted to matrimony that he has two or three wives already.
The Beggar's Opera introduced to theater the ballad-opera and an immortal cast of characters. The Peachums, employers of a company of pickpockets, sho...
The Regents Restoration Drama series provides soundly edited texts, in modern spelling, of the significant plays of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Each text is based on a fresh collation of the early authoritative editions. The textual notes record all substantive departures from the edition used as the copy-text. Variant substantive readings among contemporary editions are listed. Historical background, stage history, and literary and cultural information are included.
The Regents Restoration Drama series provides soundly edited texts, in modern spelling, of the significant plays of the late seventeenth and early ...
First published in 1676, The Virtuoso set a standard for theatrical satire. It was the most extensive dramatic treatment of modern science since Jonson's The Alchemist and took as its target no less than the Royal Society of London. Shadwell's barbs hit their targets often and cleanly. In 1689 he became Poet Laureate of England, a position he held until his death in 1692.
The virtuoso of the title is Sir Nicholas Gimcrack, who like many after him confuses the extent of a collection with the depth of a science. Sir Gimcrack is fascinated by the geography of the moon, the...
First published in 1676, The Virtuoso set a standard for theatrical satire. It was the most extensive dramatic treatment of modern science s...
Nowhere better than in the history of its railroads is the growth of the Old West revealed, and for Colorado the development of the Denver and Rio Grande Western epitomizes the changes that took place between 1870 and the present. Robert G. Athearn's intimate knowledge of the West has enabled him to write a gripping account of the famous narrow-gauge Denver and Rio Grande as it inched its way south, then turned west into the Rockies. By f1883 it had joined with the Rio Grande Western to become Colorado's only line across the mountains. The Dotsero Cutoff and the six-mile Moffat Tunnel put...
Nowhere better than in the history of its railroads is the growth of the Old West revealed, and for Colorado the development of the Denver and Rio ...
Whether for love or ambition, for parental approval or reasons of state, marriage has complicated the lives of all who enter into it. First performed in 1671, Dryden's Marriage a la Mode portrays the motives high and low that make marriage the pivotal institution of a nation. Like Dryden's best tragicomedies, Marriage a la Mode has a double plot. The hopes that marriage excites and the regrets it suffers, the possibilities it opens and the opportunities it denies, its potential nobility and its vulnerability to decay provided Dryden with plentiful dramatic material. Comedy and pathos...
Whether for love or ambition, for parental approval or reasons of state, marriage has complicated the lives of all who enter into it. First performed ...
The two plots of this tragicomedy concern a black prince sold into slavery and two white women who are husband-hunting in Surinam. Through a discussion of the status of women in the period and of attitudes towards slavery, the editors demonstrated Southerne's complex attempt to explore a parallel between the conditions of slaves and women in contemporary society. They also consider the play in terms of Southerne's high Tory politics and in its own rights as effective drama. Based on a collection of seven editions published within Southerne's life-time, this modern edition includes a section...
The two plots of this tragicomedy concern a black prince sold into slavery and two white women who are husband-hunting in Surinam. Through a discussio...
