Produced by Louise Hope, David Starner and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net 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, chiefly of intrigue: of her nineteen plays written from 1700 to 1723, ten are realistic comedies. Three of these proved very popular in her time and enjoyed a long stage history: _The Busie Body_ (1709); _The Wonder: A Woman Keeps a Secret_ (1714); and _A Bold Stroke for a Wife_ (1717). _The Busie Body_ best illustrates Mrs. Centlivre's preference for laughing comedy with an improved moral tone. The characters and the plot are amusing but inoffensive, and, compared to those of Restoration drama, satisfy the desire of the growing eighteenth-century middle-class audience for respectability on the stage.