In the two centuries between the first performance of The School for Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan and the outbreak of the First World War, the stage provided an accurate mirror of the changing mores of English society. "High comedy," Newell W. Sawyer writes, "views man as a social animal in the midst of his fellows, with customs, conventions, and traditions of his own devising, and prods him gently or mockingly, as he stands confounded by that which he has made." The comedy of manners became, from its prototype, a dramatic category reflecting the life, thought, and manners of upper-class society, faithful to its traditions and philosophy, and as such offers an ideal medium for such a study as Professor Sawyer has here undertaken. The result is a book that is at once entertaining and serious, a study of two centuries of the British stage,

First published in 1979, this book traces comedy of manners from the 1660s to the then present — a scope beyond the traditional focus on the Restoration and early twentieth century. It uncovers an underestimated subversive potential and socially critical force in this particularly English dramatic form, emphasising the distinctive subjects and style that distinguish it from more general forms of witty social satire. The author discusses the major comic dramatists of the post-Restoration period; reassesses the significance of Sheridan, Wilde and Coward; and examines the continuation of the tradition in modern writers. This book will be of interest to students of English literature and drama.

Idleness, Indolence and Leisure in English Literature is the first study to provide transhistorical perspectives and cutting-edge critical analyses of debates concerning idleness in English literature. The topicality of the subject is emphasized by two pieces of sociological analysis.

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Klaus W. Jonas' zweisprachige Ausgabe behandelt die literarische Laufbahn des Schriftstellers W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), eines der erfolgreichsten und meistgelesenen englischen Dramatiker, Essayisten und Romanciers der ersten Halfte des 20. Jahrhunderts. Maugham selbst hat das humorvolle Vorwort in der Form eines Briefes beigesteuert. Eine chronologische Darstellung seines Lebens wird erganzt durch zwei wissenschaftliche Essays des Verfassers zu Maughams umfassendem literarischen Schaffen. Von besonderem Interesse sind die Auszuge aus dem Briefwechsel zwischen Klaus W. Jonas und W. Somerset Maugham, die einen genaueren Einblick in die Personlichkeit des Schriftstellers erlauben und von der engen Vertrautheit der beiden Briefpartner zeugen. Den zweiten Teil der Ausgabe bilden eine ausfuhrliche Bibliographie von Maughams literarischem Schaffen sowie eine Auswahlbibliographie von mehr als 420 kritischen Studien in deutscher, englischer, japanischer, spanischer und franzosischer Sprache. 71 Abbildungen, viele von ihnen bisher unveroffentlicht und aus Privatbesitz, erhohen den dokumentarischen Wert dieses Bandes. In this bilingual edition the author attempts to trace the literary career of William Somerset Maugham (1874-1865), one of the most widely read and performed dramatists, essayists and novelists in English literature in the first half of the twentieth century. Maugham himself has contributed a humorous preface in the form of a letter addressed to the author. The detailed chronology of Maugham's life is being supplemented by two of the author's numerous essays dealing with the stupendous literary oeuvre of this writer. Of special interest are the excerpts from Maugham's letters to his German-born collector and biographer which provide an inside view into his personality and his friendship with Klaus W. Jonas. The second half of this volume contains a bibliographical record of Maugham's life-work and a select bibliography of 420 critical studies in German, English, French, Spanish and Japanese. 71 illustrations, many of which hitherto unpublished and privately owned, enhance the documentary value of this volume.

First published in 1959. The scope of this four volume work makes it valuable as a work of reference, connecting one period with another an placing each author clearly in the setting of his time. This is the fourth volume and includes the Nineteeth Century and after (1789-1939).