In this essay, Foulkes provides an overview of Rattigan's play, including brief production histories and notes on the actors who have played the lead role.

The plot of this play focuses on Andrew Crocker-Harris, a classics master at an English public school, who is retiring prematurely because of ill-health, and who is confronted by his wife's infidelity and his failure in his chosen profession. Like much of Rattigan's work, The Browning Version is drawn from his own experience; in this case as a pupil at Harrow School. The prototype for Crocker-Harris was one of Rattigan's teachers, Mr. Coke Norris, and the central incident of the pupil, Taplow, presenting Crocker-Harris with a copy of Browning's translation of the Agamemnon of Aeschylus is based on fact (although there is some doubt as to whether Rattigan himself was the boy involved). Certainly Taplow's interest in cricket and golf reflect Rattigan's...