SOURCE: Taylor, Aline Mackenzie. Introduction to Thomas Otway: The Orphan, edited by Aline Mackenzie Taylor, pp. xiii-xxx. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1976.

In the following essay, Taylor provides an overview of the plot and characters of The Orphan, gives a textual history of the play, and places the drama in the context of the political and social movements of the era.

The present edition of The Orphan; or, The Unhappy Marriage, is based on the first quarto (Q1), published in May 1680.¹ It is an unattractive little volume; but for all its crowded print, and obvious misprints, it suggests the quality of Otway's verse when it was spoken by Betterton and his friends on the stage of the Dorset Garden playhouse. It is verse designed for a style of acting that was neither naturalistic nor pantomimic, but declamatory and formal, its effect depending on the speaking voice and the...