With piercing accuracy, William Congreve depicted the shallow, brittle world of ‘society’, where the right artifice in manners, fashion and conversation

and money

eased the passage to success. Through sparkling, witty dialogue and brilliant characterisation

Lady Plyant, Valentine, Lady Touchwood, Mirabell and Millamant

Congreve exposed the follies and vanities of that world, and suggested that behind the glinting mirror lay something more brutal. ‘The language is everywhere that of Men of Honour, but their Actions are those of Knaves; a proof that he was perfectly well acquainted with human Nature, and frequented what we call polite company.’

Voltaire.