William Wycherley, The Country Wife - The Open Anthology of Literature in English

Theater was central to the culture of Restoration London. The restored monarch, Charles II, wanted to assert the centrality of the theater in English culture as a way of harkening back to the glory days of the Stuart dynasty in the early part of the century, when his grandfather

[King Charles II wearing a crown of laurel leaves, designed to signify his interest in literature. Painted by Antonio Verrio in 1684. (Wikimedia Commons)

William Wycherley, by Peter Cross, watercolour on vellum, circa 1675. National Portrait Gallery.

The Country Wife‘s comedy leads to a serious question. With language itself so unpredictable, so uncontrollable, Wycherley seems to be saying, how can people communicate honestly with each other? Beneath the play’s scandalous subject matter, the play seems designed to provoke serious questions about social norms, communication, and the possibilities for cohesion and harmony in his culture.

About this edition
The text of the play is based on the first, quarto edition, published in 1675, and probably printed from the Drury Lane company’s promptbook, the manuscript copy of the play that was the theater’s primary archival record for performance. This digital edition was prepared by the students in ENEC 3400, Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Theater, at the University of Virginia in the fall of 2010. They collated page images of the first edition to achieve a clean reading text. The original spelling and punctuation have been preserved (except to correct some obvious errors), since they are often a guide to pronunciation and the rhythms of speech. I have spelled out the names of speakers in full and added footnotes, media files, and this introduction.

The title page to the first edition of 1675.