<DIV>Written in defiance of Jeremy Collier and the budding fashion for<br>sentimental drama, this late Restoration comedy exposes the reformed<br>rake Loveless to the temptations of London and the charms of a merry<br>widow, neither of which he is able to withstand. More memorable than<br>the straying husband, however, is Restoration comedy's ultimate<br>follower of fashion, Lord Foppington, who defends himself in the<br>Epilogue by observing that no highwayman or Jacobite was ever well<br>dressed. As the introduction to this edition argues, Sir John Vanbrugh<br>- dramatist, architect and member of the influential Kit Cat Club -<br>presents courtship and marriage not only with cynicism, but also with<br>moral bravery and social impudence; qualities not much in evidence in<br>his sentimental rivals.</DIV>