Description:
Controversial but successful on the London stage, this play reveals the fate of a "notorious woman" in Victorian England.
Review Quotes:
"Although I have known this play for many years, J.P. Wearing's introduction sheds new light on many interesting aspects of the piece, which I look forward to teaching afresh with the benefit of this text. The footnotes and the supplementary material all help in understanding the play, placing it in the social and legal context of its day. Not that it is a mere period piece; Pinero's skill as a playwright is impressive, and one hopes that this edition will encourage new productions." -- Richard Foulkes, University of Leicester
"A century and more after the fact, A.W. Pinero's most penetrating play, The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, has now been given a full-dress evaluative and contextual editorial treatment that does complete justice to its subject. J.P. Wearing, editor of Pinero's letters, has brought his finely honed scholarly skills and broad knowledge of English theatre and culture to the task of presenting the single most authoritative text of Pinero's play in existence and surrounding it with several sets of informative critical, social, and cultural writing, along with a comprehensive introduction, chronology, and bibliography. An immense amount of research lies behind this enterprise, and a great range of potential readers, from undergraduate and graduate students to historians and critics, will be the beneficiaries." -- Joseph Donohue, Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts