Provides annotated and judiciously modernized texts of eighteen Restoration plays which offer a representative sampling of many of the different types of play put on in the period (sex comedy, moral comedy, heroic drama, Shakespearean adaptation and political history). At the same time, the even distribution of the plays throughout the period encourages students to reflect on the development of the drama over the full fifty years covered by the anthology. It includes plays by both men and women, as well as dramatic ripostes such as The Rehearsal and The Relapse, which evoke so vividly the adversarial and dialectical world of the theatre in the second half of the seventeenth century.

Edited by David Womersley

Contents:
- The Adventures of Five Hours by Sir Samuel Tuke
- The Great Favourite, or The Duke of Lerma by Sir Robert Howard
- The Conquest of Granada by John Dryden
- The Rehearsal by Buckingham
- The Country Wife by William Wycherley
- The Plain Dealer by William Wycherley
- The Man of Mode by Sir George Etherege
- The Rover by Aphra Behn
- All for Love by John Dryden
- Lucius Junicus Brutus by Nathaniel Lee
- Venice Preserved by Thomas Otway
- Love for Love by William Congreve
- Love's Last Shift by Colley Cibber
- The Relapse by Sir John Vanbrugh
- The Way of the World by William Congreve
- The Recruiting Officer by George Farguhar
- The Beaux Stratagem by George Farquhar
- The Busie Body by Susannah Centlivre