William Wycherley

The Gentleman Dancing-master (Dodo Press) William Wycherley

William Wycherley (1640-1716) was an English dramatist of the Restoration period. He was born at Clive, Shropshire near Shrewsbury. He spent his early years in France, where he was sent, at fifteen, to be educated in the heart of the "precious" circle on the banks of the Charente. While staying there, Wycherley converted to Roman Catholicism. He returned to England shortly before the restoration of King Charles II, and lived at Queen's College, Oxford. Pleasure and the stage were his only interests. His play Love in a Wood was produced early in 1671 at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, but was published the next year. It is, however, on his two last comedies -The Country Wife and The Plain Dealer- that Wycherley's fame rests. The Country Wife, produced in 1672 or 1673 and published in 1675, is full of wit, ingenuity, high spirits and conventional humour.