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GEORGE Farquhar. The Recruiting Officer and other plays, ed. William Myers. Oxford and New York: Oxford 1995. Pp. xxix + 399. £7.99; $11.95.
Aside from its tasteless cartoony cover, this is a well-presented volume in a useful series: reasonably priced, handy, attractively printed. It would be still more useful if we could have been given Farquhar whole, not halved. Although the four plays represented here - The Recruiting Officer, The Beaux Stratagem, The Twin Rivals and The Constant Couple - may appear obvious choices, is a selection required in the first place? Farquhar did not write that much, and the three plays left out from this volume - Love and a Bottle, The Inconstant and Sir Harry Wildair - now seem likely to receive even less attention. This is a pity. There are some wonderful moments in those plays.
What we have, however, are well edited, and they are prefaced by an interesting, combative Introduction. After a brief summary of...