A melancholy nobleman, consumed with hatred, commits a brutal murder. A beautiful woman is imprisoned by her abusive guardian in a haunted castle, driving her mad. A prophetic dream leads a group of monks to a buried corpse and leads to justice for the murderer. A family feud drives a clan to strand a rival on a rock to be drowned by the rising tide. A joyful wedding turns sinister when a ghost appears to reveal the tragic secret of her death. A group of women, condemned as witches, are doomed to be burnt at the stake.

These are the plots of the six plays in this collection by Scottish...

Joanna Baillie and the Art of Moral Influence explores the project of moral reform that Baillie sets out for herself in the Introductory Discourse to her first volume of Plays on the Passions (1798). It begins by revealing the foundation that Baillie creates for her project as she combines her own unique theology with eighteenth-century moral philosophy and seventeenth- and eighteenth-century discourses on the theatre s potential to reform audiences. This book argues that Baillie uses this eclectic mix to craft a potentially radical social critique in the midst of a seemingly...