ALL the plays in this volume were published within months of their stage première: The Libertine, which opened in June of 1675, was licensed for publication on 10 February 1676; The Man of Mode, which opened in March of 1676, was licensed on 22 November 1676; A Fond Husband, which probably opened in May of 1677, was licensed on 26 November 1677; and Friendship in Fashion, which most likely opened in April of 1678, was licensed on 22 June 1678. The lag between production and print follows a pattern typical for the 1670s. Judith Milhous and Robert D. Hume, in surveying the publication of plays during this period, note that by the middle of the decade, the normal time lapse had shortened to six months (by the 1680s it would shorten again, to three months).1 Interestingly, the least popular of the plays, Friendship in Fashion, was the one most rapidly hurried into print, suggesting, perhaps, that Thomas Otway hoped to realize from copyright what he had not earned at the box office. With the exception of Friendship in Fashion, the remaining three plays enjoyed frequent revivals and printings through the Restoration and the early eighteenth century. None of the plays has been significantly altered, nor is there evidence of authorial corrections in later editions.
That being the case, I have used the first quarto for my copy text. Substantive departures from the first quarto, whether editorial or derived from later seventeenth- or early eighteenth-century editions, are explained in the notes. Square brackets identify a reading imported from a later printing. I have modernized spelling and punctuation throughout. In keeping with series practice, standard forms have been adopted for characters’ names in entries and exits, as well as speech prefixes. All necessary alterations have been silently introduced. Latin forms in stage directions and speech prefixes have been silently translated: ‘solus’ or ‘sola’ as ‘alone’, ‘manet’ as ‘remains’, and ‘omnes’ as ‘all’. ‘Exit’ and ‘exeunt’ have been retained. When the first quartos have vague or problematic stage directions (‘exit’ for a multiple departure), I have made silent corrections. Again, in keeping with the editorial principles of this series, I have expanded stage directions to help the reader visualize the action. Restoration plays tend to use stage directions lightly, and occasionally those provided are confusing. For clarity, I have placed editorial stage directions and changes to original stage directions in square brackets. Series conventions dictate the silent emendation of some stage directions; for instance, concluding directions to a scene are indicated by ‘exit’ or ‘exeunt’, regardless of whether or not the first quarto specifies the characters’ names.
The 1676 quarto of The Libertine lays out some passages as verse that appear to be prose. I have experimented with both versions and relied heavily on Michael Cordner’s expert advice in this matter. Initially, I retained these speeches as verse, a practice Gillian Manning follows in her recent edition; however, Michael Cordner persuaded me to change them to prose. Upon reflection, I ultimately agreed with his reasoning, but readers, actors, and directors should be aware of the possibility of verse, especially at moments of high pathos. As with so much else relating to seventeenth-century printing, there is not a definitive solution to this problem.
Of the four plays included herein, it should not surprise that the most canonical, The Man of Mode, has appeared in several notable single-play editions: a modern-spelling text by W. B. Carnochan for the Regents Restoration Drama Series (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1966), an old-spelling text by John Conaghan for The Fountainwell Drama Texts (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1973), and a modern-spelling text by John Barnard for The New Mermaids (London: Ernest Benn, 1979). A. Wilson Verity edited the first modern collection of Etherege’s Works in 1888 (London: John C. Nimmo), but he used for his copy text the first collected edition of 1704, not the first quarto, thus importing numerous errors. Additionally, Verity’s Victorian sensibilities frequently dictated changes to ‘offensive’ language. H. F. B. Brett-Smith corrected these errors in his old-spelling Dramatic Works (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1927). To date, the most authoritative collection is Michael Cordner’s The Plays of Sir George Etherege (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), which modernizes spelling but retains, as much as possible, original punctuation and phrasing.
The modern publication history of the remaining three plays is sketchy at best. Recently, Gillian Manning prepared The Libertine for her modern-spelling collection, Libertine Plays of the Restoration (London: J. M. Dent, 2001). Previously, it had appeared in 1927 as part of The Complete Works of Thomas Shadwell, an old-spelling edition put together by Montague Summers (London: Fortune Press, 1927). Durfey’s A Fond Husband has been edited by Jack A. Vaughn and included in his volume, Two Comedies (Rutherford, Pa.: Fairleigh Dickinson, 1976). Friendship in Fashion has been included in two old-spelling editions, The Complete Works of Thomas Otway, edited by Montague Summers (Bloomsbury: Nonesuch, 1926), and The Works of Thomas Otway, edited by J. C. Ghosh (Oxford: Clarendon, 1932).