The novel "Lady Bountiful" brings us to Edwardian Ireland with its free-willing society: "A man may do many things there, things frowned on elsewhere, without losing caste." Yet, one thing can't be excused. That is a marriage without profit. This happened to the seventy-two-year-old Sir Tony Corless, who lost his caste by marrying a cook, a plain girl about forty years younger. She could barely read, but she had enough common sense to save her from posing as a great lady. She was never interested in politics until one morning when Lord Corless was reading his morning news out loud. At that moment, an idea of how to get instantly rich sparked her mind and set a train of events that changed her little society.

This novel tells the story of the late Christopher Eldred-Wolfram's wife. Christopher had been an important figure in politics. As a holder of an office, his wife had of necessity seen something of the world. But she had never cared for it; she had never for one moment forgotten Caradoc and the pedigree of a thousand years. The death of her husband had relieved her of the necessity of being polite to comparatively new creations and society leaders, whose social edifice was firmly rooted in beer barrels and the like. For Mrs. Eldred-Wolfram had been related to her husband, and the aegis of the pedigree was as a halo above her head.

The Broadview Anthology of Restoration and Early Eighteenth-Century Drama, Concise Edition, with twenty-one plays, is half the length of the full anthology without compromising its breadth. Concentrating on plays from the heyday of 1660-1737, it focuses on Restoration drama proper and Revolution drama, with a selection from the early Georgian period and the later Georgian period’s “laughing comedy.” Seven of the nine sub-genres (personal tragedy, tragicomic romance, social comedy, subversive comedy, corrective satire, menippean satire, and laughing comedy) of the full anthology are represented, with the preponderance of exposure given to the jewel of this theatre, its comedy. Each play is fully annotated and prefaced with an historical introduction. Also included are a general introduction, a statement of procedures, and a glossary.

Volume 1 of this two-volume set contains 26 plays including Aeschylus "Prometheus Bound"; Sophocles "Antigone"; Seneca "Medea"; Marlowe, "Dr. Faustus"; Heywood, "A Woman Killed with Kindness"; Johnson, "Every Man in His Humour"; Beaumont and Fletcher "The Maid's Tragedy"; Sheridan "The School for Scandal"; plus plays from the Orient, medieval plays and more.

The play tells the story of two young bucks who, having spent all their money by living too well, leave London and roam from town to town in search of love and fortune. In order to find a wealthy heiress for at least one of them, they pose as master and servant ¿ exchanging roles from one town to the next. In Lichfield, Aimwell is the master and Archer the servant, and there they meet the lovely, wealthy Dorinda and her equally desirable sister-in-law, Mrs. Kate Sullen. They set their caps for these women, but problems abound. Kate is married to a drunken sot who despises her; the innkeeper¿s saucy daughter, Cherry, has set her cap for Archer; Dorinda¿s mother, Lady Bountiful, mistakenly believes herself to be a great healer of the sick, and she guards her daughter like a dragoness; and a band of brigands plans to rob the house of Lady Bountiful that very night, putting all schemes in jeopardy. This is a play in the great tradition of Goldsmith¿s She Stoops to Conquer and Sheridan¿s The Rivals and The School for Scandal. It is classic, formal, robust and hilarious.