Author:William Congreve,George Etherege,William Wycherley,Gamini Salgado

After the restoration of King Charles II to the British throne in 1660, dramatists experienced new freedom in an age that broke from the strict morality of puritan rule and in which elegance and wit became the chief virtues. Irreverent, licentious and cynical, the three plays collected here hold up a mirror to this dazzling era and satirize the gulf between appearances and reality. In Etherege's The Man of Mode (1676), the womanizing Dorimant meets his match when he falls in love with the unpretentious Harriet, while Wycherley's The Country Wife (c. 1675) depicts the rakish Horner who fakes impotence to fool trusting husbands into giving him easy access to their wives. And in Congreve's Love for Love (1695), the extravagant Valentine can only win his beloved Angelica if he loses his inheritance.
Sophisticated comedy-what gives it its distinction is the quality of observation and the unusual marriage of high spirits with melancholy awareness of the passing of time
—— ScotsmanIrresistible
—— Literary ReviewAn acute observer of manners and styles
—— IndependentHere is an imagination that effortlessly brings character after character to valiant, preposterous, malevolent or desperate life. Here is a writer who deserves to be far more widely read
—— SpectatorIt has a lightness, a breadth... an impressive energy and a humane comedy... Entertaining and affecting
—— Times Literary SupplementWhy is he not spoken of in the same breath as Amis, Barnes and co? One of the best novels I have read this year
—— D. J. Taylor , Independent on SundayThe only bad thing about this novel is that it had to end
—— Sunday Telegraph






