This book on Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) demonstrates how he occupies a significant and unique place in the theatrical and political life in Great Britain. Simultaneously a leading
Whig politician and the most dominant figure in the British theatre during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, his reputation was as the most important English playwright of the
eighteenth century, based on The Rivals (1775) and the School for Scandal (1777). Theatre historians tend to view these works as manners comedies which are long on style but appropriately short
on substance. This book argues that Sheridan�� dramaturgy offers snapshots of the state of negotiations between the classes over British identity.
