Often considered the finest Restoration comedy ever written, The Way of the World (1700) was a failure on its first night — perhaps too sophisticated even for its original audience. Its portrait of London fashionable society is a hall of mirrors of manipulation and counter-manipulation, and its central romantic negotiation — the famous ‘proviso scene’ between Mirabell and Millamant — is the wittiest courtship in all of drama.
Congreve’s final play is a work of supreme artifice and intelligence. This free EPUB is formatted for Kindle, Kobo, or any e-reader.