Students who enjoy reading Shakespeare might want to consider two of his plays which treat themes similar to those in Goldsmith's play, in particular love and the problems faced by young lovers whose marriage has been forbidden by parents. Critics see resemblances between Goldsmith's Kate and Rosalind, the heroine of Shakespeare's 1599 comedy As You Like It. Both plays feature smart and spirited women and both create comedy from forbidden loves, disguises, and mistaken identities.

Those preferring tragedy might prefer Shakespeare's 1595 Romeo and Juliet, in which parental interference with the lover's plans for marriage leads to suicide and death. Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim successfully adapted Romeo and Juliet for the musical theatre in West Side Story.

Like Goldsmith's play, Frances Burney's 1778 epistolary novel Evelina, or a Young Lady's Entrance into the World also portrays the eighteenth century's Britain's marriage market...