The Mourning Bride was Congreve's only dramatic tragedy. Performed in 1697, it was a triumphant success and ran for thirteen days at Lincoln's Inn Fields. Set in the south of Spain, it dramatizes earlier historical conflicts between Granada and Valencia and the part played in this struggle by Moorish expeditions from the north coast of Africa. But the plot is fictional and characters are drawn not from history but from earlier heroic plays.

When The Old Batchelour, Congreve's first play, was printed in 1693, it was an immediate success and its author hailed as John Dryden's successor. Indeed, Dryden helped Congreve, who was only twenty-three years old at the time, prepare the play for the theatre. This first play, like his later comedies, mirrored the manners of fashionable society. It can be enjoyed for its sheer gaiety and youthful energy, but it...