Excerpt from Longer Plays by Modern Authors The four plays in this volume have, with one exception, been written and produced since 1918. Beau Brummell alone has attained the dignity of years. And yet, because it lacks what is commonly called "structure," Clyde Fitch's comedy of over three decades ago is astonishingly modern in method. Its subject marks it as belonging to the succession of romantic plays that has been unbroken since the eighteenth century. The Copperhead, though of more recent date than Beau Brummell, somewhat resembles in workmanship the Civil War melodramas of the eighties and nineties of the last century. In theme, The Copperhead is aligned with plays on kindred subjects that began to be written during the conflict between the Colonies and England and followed the trail of American history through the difficulties with the Barbary States, the War of 1812, the [Mexican War and the Civil War. Dulcy, with its penetrating study of American business men and its deadly characterization of a droll feminine type, and The Intimate Strangers, with its wise and humorous reflections on the youngest generation, are in a sense similar in motive to the social satires which, beginning with The Contrast, have appeared from time to time on our stage. Though the acted play can be exhaustively studied only in New York, now admittedly the center of theatrical activity in the United States, the vogue of the printed play shows how general and how extended is an intelligent interest in the theatre. A collection like the present one is made in the interests of a widely distributed reading public. The growth of this public is more or less coincident with a dramatic revival that took place in England and in America about forty years ago. As Brander Matthews has recently observed: "The drama of our language ... underwent an eclipse in the midyears of the nineteenth century. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.