Sir George Etherege

Plays and Poems

The Works of Sir George Etheredge

The Dramatic Works of Sir George Etherege

Thomas Otway

John Banks

George Villiers (2nd Duke of Buckingham)

Thomas Southerne

Vol. II.

A Select Collection of the Best Modern English Plays

The Works of Sir George Etheredge: Plays and Poems

George Villiers (duke of Buckingham)

George Granville Lansdowne (lord Lansdown)

Vol. VI.

A Collection of the Best English Plays, Chosen Out of All the Best Authors..

John Vanbrugh

Mr. Colley Cibber

Vol. X.

A Comedy. Acted at His Highness the Duke of York's Theatre

She Wou'd If She Cou'd

A Comedy

A Comedy. Writen [sic] by Sir George Etherege

George Etherege

Even among the richly talented generation who wrote for the stage during the Restoration, Etherege was, from the start, considered to be a very special kind of innovator. His first play, The Comical Revenge (1664), with its partisan portrait of the Cavalier gentry during the last years of the Revolution and its bravura interweaving of four separate plots, deftly caught an early Restoration mood and enjoyed great popularity. Its successor, She Would if She Could (1668), marks a deliberate change in direction. Audiences, expecting a sequel more akin to The Comical Revenge, were at first faltering in their response, but by 1671 Thomas Shadwell was confidently calling it the best comedy to have been written since the return of the king in 1660. Etherege's masterpiece, however, is his last play, The Man of Mode (1676), which in clarity of vision and freshness of detail surpasses both its predecessors and in the early years of the eighteenth century became a central text in the debate about the worth of Restoration comedy. This edition includes annotated texts of all three plays, prefaced by an account of Etherege's life and the reception of his plays on the stage and in criticism.

The Plays of George Etherege

Sir George Etherege

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