{"product_id":"9781408145029","title":"The Rivals","description":"Both Sheridan and Goldsmith lamented the popularity of sentimental\u003cbr\u003ecomedy in the later eighteenth century and wrote their witty and\u003cbr\u003esatirical plays (though never lascivious in the manner of Restoration\u003cbr\u003ecomedies) to counteract the sentimental mode. The Rivals (1775) was a\u003cbr\u003equalified success: the suave young officer who is 'forced' by his\u003cbr\u003efather to marry the very girl to whom he is secretly engaged must\u003cbr\u003ealways please; but first audiences were as uncertain as later critics\u003cbr\u003eabout how to evaluate his neurotic friend Faulkland, who invents a\u003cbr\u003eseries of caveats for his marriage to the earnest Julia. A country\u003cbr\u003esquire who becomes alarmingly foppish in town, an impetuous Irishman\u003cbr\u003eand the linguistically challenged Mrs Malaprop complete the cast. This\u003cbr\u003eedition includes the original preface and several prologues; in an\u003cbr\u003eappendix it lists all the fashionable books and songs to which the\u003cbr\u003echaracters allude.","brand":"Bloomsbury USA","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47121801642224,"sku":"9781408145029","price":9.93,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781408145029_p0.jpg?v=1772805269","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781408145029","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}