In this book, Anthony Jenkins examines seven Victorian playwrights who, despite their own ideals and prejudices and the theatre's conservatism, tried to come to terms with such momentous subjects as womanliness, honour, and money.

Addressed to the enthusiastic theatregoer as well as to students of contemporary theatre, this new edition includes a fresh chapter on Hapgood. Anthony Jenkins is an actor and director as well as a teacher of drama, and this refreshing perspective informs his writing. He is interested in how Stoppard's plays work in the theatre, and describes the playwright's use of stage space and action, interior emotions, the pauses in the dialogue, as well as the dialogue itself.

In this book Anthony Jenkins examines seven Victorian playwrights who, despite their own ideals and prejudices and the theatre's conservatism, tried to come to terms with such momentous subjects as womanliness, honour and money. The opening chapter briefly describes the social transformation of theatre during the century and the increasing respectability of actors and playhouses. Subsequent chapters deal with the drama of Edward Bulwer, Tom Robertson, W. S. Gilbert, H. A. Jones, Arthur Pinero, Oscar Wilde and Bernard Shaw. Each of these dramatists sought to create a theatre of ideas according...