The two plays presented in full in this volume span a period of 25 years; Wycherley's The Country Wife was written in 1675 and Congreve's The Way of the World in 1700. Together, they give readers a flavour of the bawdy and satirical comedies performed in the sophisticated theatres of the late-17th and early-18th centuries. Each play reflects thehistorical situation of the time in which it was written; Wycherley's play is set in a world of infidelity and sexual license, recognizable as the immoral metropolitan London of Charles II's reign; whilst Congreve's Way of the World written a generation later, is clearly the product of a less fragile environment. Placed side by side, they demonstrateto readers how comedy evolved over the Restoration period as the political climate became more stable. A general introduction helps readers to grasp the salient features of the plays and the period in which they were written.