Wycherley: 'The Country Wife'; Etherege: 'The Man Of Mode'; Dryden: 'All For Love'; Otway: 'Venice Preserved'; Vanbrugh: 'The Provoked Wife'; Congreve: 'The Way Of The World'; Farquhar: 'The Beaux' Stratagem'.
The five comedies and two tragedies in this wide-ranging collection are a representative sample of the fresh, sophisticated and often brutally real drama that sprang up with the re-establishment of the monarchy in 1660. A memorable cross-section of humanity appears here, revealing a variety of moods current during the decades of the Restoration, as well as the unchanging characteristics of human nature.
This is the most comprehensive edition available, with modern spelling and punctuation, introductions, bibliographies, notes, plot summaries and chronologies.