The Provoked Wife (New Mermaids)

In this late Restoration comedy Vanbrugh not only pushes the unhappily married couple, which had been good for no more than a raucous subplot in earlier comedies of manners, centre-stage - he also makes the audience sympathise with the wife: The only thing Sir John and Lady Brute agree on is that they ought not to have married each other; now he spends his time in drunken debauchery with his cronies, while she tries to withstand the advances of her admirer Constant. After a series of farcical accidents involving cross-dressing and the eternal lover-in-the-wardrobe, the couple end where they began. Since the scene in which Sir John disguises as a clergyman was deemed 'immoral and profane', an alternative scene (in its way equally profane) was written, in which he disguises as his own wife. This edition provides both versions and discusses the play's continuing popularity on the stage.

• The Roaring Girl (New Mermaids)
• The Country Wife (New Mermaids)
• Five Plays (Penguin Classics)
• Every Man in His Humour
• The Way of the World (Regents Restoration Drama)
• The Man of Mode: Or, Sir Fopling Flutter
• Three Restoration Comedies: The Man of Mode; The Country Wife; Love for love (English Library)