The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Busie Body, by Susanna Centlivre

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Title: The Busie Body

Author: Susanna Centlivre

Commentator: Jess Byrd

Release Date: September 24, 2005 [EBook #16740]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BUSIE BODY ***

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The Augustan Reprint Society

SUSANNA CENTLIVRE
_THE BUSIE BODY_
(1709)

With an Introduction by
Jess Byrd

Publication Number 19
(Series V, No. 3)

Los Angeles
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
University of California
1949

* * * * *

_GENERAL EDITORS_

H. RICHARD ARCHER, _Clark Memorial Library_
RICHARD C. BOYS, _University of Michigan_
EDWARD NILES HOOKER, _University of California, Los Angeles_
H.T. SWEDENBERG, JR., _University of California, Los Angeles_

_ASSISTANT EDITOR_

W. EARL BRITTON, _University of Michigan_

_ADVISORY EDITORS_

EMMETT L. AVERY, _State College of Washington_
BENJAMIN BOYCE, _University of Nebraska_
LOUIS I. BREDVOLD, _University of Michigan_
CLEANTH BROOKS, _Yale University_
JAMES L. CLIFFORD, _Columbia University_
ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, _University of Chicago_
SAMUEL H. MONK, _University of Minnesota_
ERNEST MOSSNER, _University of Texas_
JAMES SUTHERLAND, _Queen Mary College, London_

* * * * *

INTRODUCTION

Susanna Centlivre (1667?-1723) in _The Busie Body_ (1709) contributed
to the stage one of the most successful comedies of intrigue of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This play, written when there was a
decided trend in England toward sentimental drama, shows Mrs. Centlivre
a strong supporter of laughing comedy. She had turned for a time to
sentimental comedy and with one of her three sentimental plays, _The
Gamester_ (1704), had achieved a great success. But her true bent seems
to have been toward realistic comedies,