This edition brings together four eighteenth-century comedies that illustrate the full variety of the century's drama: Fielding's The Modern Husband, Garrick and Colman's The Clandestine Marriage, Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer, and O'Keeffe's Wild Oats.

This edition brings together four eighteenth-century comedies that illustrate the full variety of the social and cultural mores of the time. Fielding's The Modern Husband, written before the 1737 Licensing Act that restricted political and social comment, depicts wife-pandering and widespread social corruption. In Garrick and Colman's The Clandestine Marriage two lovers marry in defiance of parental wishes and rue the consequences. She Stoops to Conquer explores the comic and not-so-comic consequences of mistaken identity, and in Wild Oats, the strolling player Rover is a beacon of hope at a time of unrest.
Part of the Oxford English Drama series, this edition has modern-spelling texts, critical introduction, wide-ranging annotation, and an informative bibliography.