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The Relapse * The Provoked Wife * The Confederacy * A Journey to London * The Country HouseThese five comedies on the theme of marital disharmony by the foremost Restoration playwright John Vanbrugh (1664-1726) are published in the Oxford English Drama series. The texts are freshly edited using modern spelling. There is a critical introduction, wide-ranging annotation, and an informative bibliography which together illuminate the plays'' cultural context and theatrical potential for reader and performer alike.''The series should reshape the canon in a number of significant areas. A splendid and imaginative project.''Professor Anne Barton, Cambridge UniversityABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

The Relapse * The Provoked Wife * The Confederacy * A Journey to London * The Country HouseThese five comedies on the theme of marital disharmony by the foremost Restoration playwright John Vanbrugh (1664-1726) are published in the Oxford English Drama series. The texts are freshly edited using modern spelling. There is a critical introduction, wide-ranging annotation, and an informative bibliography which together illuminate the plays'' cultural context and theatrical potential for reader and performer alike.''The series should reshape the canon in a number of significant areas. A splendid and imaginative project.''Professor Anne Barton, Cambridge UniversityABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

This book advances a new cultural reading of the formation of the British novel. Rejecting a teleological narrative of the genre's 'rise' and through close analysis of key texts, the authors present a dynamic picture of the emergence of the novel, which focuses upon formal innovation, social engagement, and artistic and commercial competition.

This book advances a new cultural reading of the formation of the British novel. Rejecting a teleological narrative of the genre's 'rise' and through close analysis of key texts, the authors present a dynamic picture of the emergence of the novel, which focuses upon formal innovation, social engagement, and artistic and commercial competition.

This succinct authoritative book offers readers an overview of the origins, characteristics, and changing status of tragicomedy from the 17th century to the present. It explores the work of some of the key English and Irish playwrights associated with the form, the influence of Italian and Spanish theorist-playwrights and the importance of translations of Pierre Corneille’s Le Cid. At the turn of the 17th century, English dramatists such as John Marston, John Fletcher, and William Shakespeare began experimenting with plays that mixed elements of tragedy and comedy, producing a blended mode that they themselves called ‘tragicomedy’. This book begins by examining the sources of their inspiration and the theatrical achievement that they hoped to gain by confronting an audience with plays that defied the plot and character expectations of ‘pure’ comedy and tragedy. It goes on to show how, reacting to French models, John Dryden, Shakespeare ‘improvers’ and other English playwrights developed the form while sowing the seeds of its own vulnerability to parody and obsolescence in the eighteenth century. Discussing nineteenth-century melodrama as in some respects a resurrection of tragicomedy, the final chapter concentrates on plays by Ibsen, Chekhov, and Beckett as examples of the form being revived to create theatrical modes that more adequately represent the perceived complexity of experience.

This succinct authoritative book offers readers an overview of the origins, characteristics, and changing status of tragicomedy from the 17th century to the present. It explores the work of some of the key English and Irish playwrights associated with the form, the influence of Italian and Spanish theorist-playwrights and the importance of translations of Pierre Corneille’s Le Cid. At the turn of the 17th century, English dramatists such as John Marston, John Fletcher, and William Shakespeare began experimenting with plays that mixed elements of tragedy and comedy, producing a blended mode that they themselves called ‘tragicomedy’. This book begins by examining the sources of their inspiration and the theatrical achievement that they hoped to gain by confronting an audience with plays that defied the plot and character expectations of ‘pure’ comedy and tragedy. It goes on to show how, reacting to French models, John Dryden, Shakespeare ‘improvers’ and other English playwrights developed the form while sowing the seeds of its own vulnerability to parody and obsolescence in the eighteenth century. Discussing nineteenth-century melodrama as in some respects a resurrection of tragicomedy, the final chapter concentrates on plays by Ibsen, Chekhov, and Beckett as examples of the form being revived to create theatrical modes that more adequately represent the perceived complexity of experience.

This succinct authoritative book offers readers an overview of the origins, characteristics, and changing status of tragicomedy from the 17th century to the present. It explores the work of some of the key English and Irish playwrights associated with the form, the influence of Italian and Spanish theorist-playwrights and the importance of translations of Pierre Corneille''s Le Cid. At the turn of the 17th century, English dramatists such as John Marston, John Fletcher, and William Shakespeare began experimenting with plays that mixed elements of tragedy and comedy, producing a blended mode that they themselves called ''tragicomedy''. This book begins by examining the sources of their inspiration and the theatrical achievement that they hoped to gain by confronting an audience with plays that defied the plot and character expectations of ''pure'' comedy and tragedy. It goes on to show how, reacting to French models, John Dryden, Shakespeare ''improvers'' and other English playwrights developed the form while sowing the seeds of its own vulnerability to parody and obsolescence in the eighteenth century. Discussing nineteenth-century melodrama as in some respects a resurrection of tragicomedy, the final chapter concentrates on plays by Ibsen, Chekhov, and Beckett as examples of the form being revived to create theatrical modes that more adequately represent the perceived complexity of experience.

This succinct authoritative book offers readers an overview of the origins, characteristics, and changing status of tragicomedy from the 17th century to the present. It explores the work of some of the key English and Irish playwrights associated with the form, the influence of Italian and Spanish theorist-playwrights and the importance of translations of Pierre Corneille''s Le Cid. At the turn of the 17th century, English dramatists such as John Marston, John Fletcher, and William Shakespeare began experimenting with plays that mixed elements of tragedy and comedy, producing a blended mode that they themselves called ''tragicomedy''. This book begins by examining the sources of their inspiration and the theatrical achievement that they hoped to gain by confronting an audience with plays that defied the plot and character expectations of ''pure'' comedy and tragedy. It goes on to show how, reacting to French models, John Dryden, Shakespeare ''improvers'' and other English playwrights developed the form while sowing the seeds of its own vulnerability to parody and obsolescence in the eighteenth century. Discussing nineteenth-century melodrama as in some respects a resurrection of tragicomedy, the final chapter concentrates on plays by Ibsen, Chekhov, and Beckett as examples of the form being revived to create theatrical modes that more adequately represent the perceived complexity of experience.

On December 1727 an intriguing play called Double Falshood; Or, The Distrest Lovers was presented for production by Lewis Theobald, who had it published in January 1728 after a successful run at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London. The title page to the published version claims that the play was ''Written Originally by W.SHAKESPEARE''.Double Falsehood''s plot is a version of the story of Cardenio found in Cervantes''s Don Quixote (1605) as translated by Thomas Shelton, published in 1612 though in circulation earlier. Documentary records testify to the existence of a play, certainly performed in 1613, by John Fletcher and William Shakespeare, probably entitled The History of Cardenio and presumed to have been lost. The audience in 1727 would certainly have recognised stage situations and dramatic structures and patterns reminiscent of those in Shakespeare''s canonical plays as well as many linguistic echoes.This intriguing complex textual and performance history is thoroughly explored and debated in this fully annotated edition, including the views of other major Shakespeare scholars. The illustrated introduction provides a comprehensive overview of the debates and opinions surrounding the play and the text is fully annotated with detailed commentary notes as in any Arden edition.