The general arrangement of this collection remains as it was, but I have taken the opportunity to add the one play that students and colleagues have most often urged me to include, Behn's The Rover. I have also redesigned the Criticism section in order to provide some of the best examples of the kinds of analysis that have become prominent in the past two decades.

This Second Edition builds on its predecessor’s strengths by adding a sixth play, Aphra Behn’s The Rover, a comedy that has clearly come into prominence in recent years. The plays are fully annotated for the modern reader and are accompanied by six illustrations.

The close relationship between theater and society during the period continues to be the focus of “Contexts.” The editor offers contemporary discussions of the following topics: “On Wit, Humour, and Laughter: 1660–1775,” “The Collier Controversy: 1698,” “Steele and Dennis: On The Man of Mode and The Conscious Lovers,” and “Stages, Actors, and Audiences.”

“Criticism” has been revised to reflect approaches in scholarly interpretations. Two seminal essays from the First Edition have been retained—Charles Lamb’s appreciation of the period’s comedy and L. C. Knights’s condemnation of it. New essays by Jocelyn Powell, Harriet Hawkins, Elin Diamond, Martin Price, and Laura Brown have been added.

Preface to the First Edition

Preface to the Second Edition

A Note on the Texts

The Texts of the Plays

 Illustration: The Country Wife, National Theatre, 1977

　William Wycherley—The Country Wife

　George Etherege—The Man of Mode

　Aphra Behn—The Rover

　Illustrations: The Way of The World, National Theatre, 1969

　Illustrations: The Way of The World, National Theatre, 1969

　William Congreve—The Way of the World

　Richard Steele—The Conscious Lovers

　Illustrations: The School for Scandal, Haymarket Theatre, 1962

　Richard Brinsley Sheridan—The School for Scandal

Contexts

　On Wit, Humour, and Laughter: 1650–1775

　Thomas Hobbes:

　　[On Laughter]

　　[On Wit]

　　[On Power]

　John Dryden—Preface to An Evening’s Love: or, The Mock Astrologer

　William Congreve—Concerning Humour in Comedy

　Richard Steele: Epilogue to The Lying Lover

　The Tatler, No. 219

　Joseph Addison: The Spectator, No. 47

　The Spectator, No. 62

　Oliver Goldsmith—An Essay on the Theater

　The Collier Controversy: 1698

　Jeremy Collier—A Short View of the Immorality and Profaneness of the English Stage

　John Dennis—The Usefulness of the Stage

　William Congreve—Amendments of Mr. Collier’s False and Imperfect Citations

　Steele and Dennis: On The Man of Mode and The Conscious Lovers

　Richard Steele: The Spectator, No. 65

　The Theatre, No. 1

　The Theatre, No. 3

　John Dennis: A Defense of Sir Fopling Flutter

　Remarks on The Conscious Lovers

　Stages, Actors, and Audiences

　Emmet L. Avery and Arthur H. Scouten—The Theatrical World, 1600–1700

　Elizabeth Howe—The Arrival of the Actress

　Emmet L. Avery and Arthur H. Scouten—The Audience

　Charles Beecher Hogan—[Scenery and Lighting]

　Illustration: Model Reconstruction of Wren’s Design for a Playhouse, ca. 1674

　Illustration: The Interior of Drury Lane in 1775

Criticism

　Charles Lamb—On the Artificial Comedy of the Last Century

　L. C. Knights—Restoration Comedy: The Reality and the Myth

　Jocelyn Powell—[Visual Rhythm in The Country Wife]

　Harriet Hawkins—[The Man of Mode]

　Elin Diamond—Gestus and Signature in Aphra Behn’s The Rover

　Martin Price—[Form and Wit in The Way of the World]

　Laura Brown—[The Way of the World]

　Raymond Williams—[Sentimentalism and Social History]

Selected Bibliography