The notorious rake Harry Horner pretends to have succumbed to a venereal disease and thus become impotent in order to be allowed to spend time alone with “virtuous” society wives—and thereby have affairs with them, making cuckolds of all London’s respectable husbands. Meanwhile, the young Margery Pinchwife, chosen by her domineering husband for her presumed country innocence, proves herself naively eager to indulge in the pleasures of city life. Such are the ribald ideas at the center of The Country Wife, William Wycherley’s most famous play and a favorite of audiences and scholars today for its vibrantly witty dialogue and sharp satire on Restoration London. Among the bawdiest plays to have emerged onto the newly licentious Restoration stage, The Country Wife was deemed unfit for performance throughout much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but in the twentieth was reacknowledged as a masterpiece of seventeenth-century comedy. This edition is accompanied by a concise introduction, helpful annotations, and a brief selection of contextual materials addressing morality on the English stage.
