School for Scandal

Enduringly popular less for its plots than for its verbal brillianceand wit, The School for Scandal (1777) was the most frequentlyperformed play of its time. Sir Peter Teazle has made the perennialmistake of elderly bachelors in English comedy and married a muchyounger wife in the hope that she will be too innocent to cross him. Infact, Lady Teazle spends her time with Lady Sneerwell and the worst setof scandalmongers in town, who have a beady eye on Charles Surface, thereckless young libertine, in expectation of seeing him ruined. Charles,however, turns out to possess the sterling virtues of generosity andloyalty to friends and family; and it is his hypocritical brotherJoseph who ends up the villain of the piece. This edition discussesSheridan's earlier drafts for the play and sets it into its theatricalcontext of anti-sentimentalism and its social context of the LondonHigh Society in which Sheridan had begun to move.