This edition brings together four eighteenth-century comedies that illustrate the full variety of the social and cultural mores of the time. Fielding's The Modern Husband, written before the 1737 Licensing Act that restricted political and social comment, depicts wife-pandering and widespread social corruption. In Garrick and Colman's The Clandestine Marriage two lovers marry in defiancé of parental wishes and rue the consequences. She Stoops to Conquer explores the comic and not-so-comic consequences of mistaken identity, and in Wild Oats, the strolling player Rover is a beacon of hope at a time of unrest. Part of the Oxford English Drama series, this edition has modern-spelling texts, critical introduction, wide-ranging annotation, and an informative bibliography.
Author
Literary reputation of Irish-born British writer Oliver Goldsmith rests on his novel The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), the pastoral poem The Deserted Village (1770), and the dramatic comedy She Stoops to Conquer (1773). This Anglo-Irish poet, dramatist, novelist, and essayist wrote, translated, or compiled more than forty volumes. Good sense, moderation, balance, order, and intellectual honesty mark the works for which people remember him.
