The School for Scandal

The School for Scandal

Richard Brinsley Sheridan

The text of THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL in this edition is taken, by Mr.

Fraser Rae's generous permission, from his SHERIDAN'S PLAYS NOW PRINTED

AS HE WROTE THEM. In his Prefatory Notes (xxxvii), Mr. Rae writes: "The

manuscript of it [THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL] in Sheridan's own handwriting

is preserved at Frampton Court and is now printed in this volume. This

version differs in many respects from that which is generally known,

and I think it is even better than that which has hitherto been read and

acted. As I have endeavoured to reproduce the works of Sheridan as he

wrote them, I may be told that he was a bad hand at punctuating and very

bad at spelling. . . . But Sheridan's shortcomings as a speller have

been exaggerated." Lest "Sheridan's shortcomings" either in spelling

or in punctuation should obscure the text, I have, in this edition,

inserted in brackets some explanatory suggestions. It has seemed best,

also, to adopt a uniform method for indicating stage-directions and

abbreviations of the names of characters. There can be no gain to the

reader in reproducing, for example, Sheridan's different indications for

the part of Lady Sneerwell--LADY SNEERWELL, LADY SNEER., LADY SN., and

LADY S.--or his varying use of EXIT and EX., or his inconsistencies in

the use of italics in the stage-directions. Since, however, Sheridan's

biographers, from Moore to Fraser Rae, have shown that no authorised or

correct edition of THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL was published in Sheridan's

lifetime, there seems unusual justification for reproducing the text of

the play itself with absolute fidelity to the original manuscript. Mr.

Ridgway, who repeatedly sought to obtain a copy corrected by the author,

according to Moore's account (LIFE OF SHERIDAN, I. p. 260), "was told

by Mr. Sheridan, as an excuse for keeping it back, that he had been

nineteen years endeavouring to satisfy himself with the style of The

School for Scandal, but had not yet succeeded." Mr. Rae (SHERIDAN, I. p.

332) recorded his discovery of the manuscript of "two acts of The School

for Scandal prepared by Sheridan for publication," and hoped, before his

death, to publish this partial revision. Numberless unauthorized changes

in the play have been made for histrionic purposes, from the first

undated Dublin edition to that of Mr. Augustin Daly. Current texts may

usually be traced, directly or indirectly, to the two-volume Murray

edition of Sheridan's plays, in 1821. Some of the changes from the

original manuscript, such as the blending of the parts of Miss Verjuice

and Snake, are doubtless effective for reasons of dramatic economy, but

many of the "cuts" are to be regretted from the reader's standpoint. The

student of English drama will prefer Sheridan's own text to editorial

emendations, however clever or effective for dramatic ends.

THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL