Presenting a captivating collection of the most beloved humorous plays by the dramatist of the restoration comedy of manners, Sir John Vanbrugh. The volume features two of his argumentative and outspoken Restoration comedies, 'The Relapse' and 'The Provoked Wife,' which are stage favorites but initially gained much controversy. Contents include: The Relapse; Or, Virtue in Danger. The Provok'd Wife, with a new Scene. Æsop, in two Parts. The False Friend.

Presenting a captivating collection of the most beloved humorous plays by the dramatist of the restoration comedy of manners, Sir John Vanbrugh. The volume features free and lively adaptations from the French, including 'The Country House' and 'The Confederacy' and several other comedies. Contents include: The Confederacy The Mistake The Country House A Journey to London The Provok'd Husband

Reproduction of the original.

This volume provides the first new edition of Cibber's plays since 1777, and the first edition ever published that includes all of his known plays and that incorporates his extensive and often complex revisions. This modern-spelling edition features a comprehensive general introduction to Cibber's career, and separate introductions for each play, detailing sources, performance data, and publication history. Annotations and textual notes are included to allow for additional study.

In the last decade of Dryden's life, he brought four new works before the theatre-going public: a dramatic opera, a tragedy, a tragicomedy, and a number of appendages to an old comedy by John Fletcher, which was revived partly so that Dryden might have the author's third-night profits. He died that night, but his family received the money. The dramatic opera, King Arthur, benefited from a fine score by Henry Purcell and has remained in the operatic repertoire to this day. Cleomenes, the tragedy, was banned until Dryden was able to convince Queen Mary that it did not reflect any seditious sympathy with the exiled James II, after which it was successful. The fate of Love Triumphant, the tragicomedy, was different; possibly because of a growing swell of moral reform, the play was universally damned, even though its themes of incest and miscellaneous fornication had never brought rejection to Dryden in the past. The Secular Masque, Dryden's principal contribution to The Pilgrim by Fletcher, had undistinguished music, but its lively verse and broad review of the previous century kept the piece on the stage for the next fifty years, and in anthologies up to the present.