The Country Wife

Drama Classics: The World's Great Plays at a Great Little Price

A classically bawdy Restoration Comedy, widely regarded as one of the filthiest and funniest plays ever written.

The City of London in the seventeenth century. Harry Horner wants to seduce as many women as possible, but he needs to convince their husbands that he’s physically incapable of any such thing. Cannily, his faux impotence also allows him to sniff out and unmask those respectably virtuous ladies who secretly ache for him.

William Wycherley's The Country Wife was first performed in January 1675, by the King's Company, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

The Country Wife is also available in the collection Restoration Comedy: Three Plays.

The Country Wife is a set text for AQA English Literature A/AS Level and for WJEC Drama and Theatre Arts A/AS Level.