The Conscious Lovers

…last and most successful comedy, The Conscious Lovers (1722)—one of the most popular plays of the century and perhaps the best example of English sentimental comedy.

…comedy is Sir Richard Steele’s The Conscious Lovers (1722), which deals with the trials and tribulations of its penniless heroine Indiana. The discovery that she is an heiress affords the necessary happy resolution. Steele, in describing the affect he wished the play to have, said he would like to arouse…

…comedy for didactic purposes, produced The Conscious Lovers (1722) and provided the English stage with an occasion when the audience at a comedy could derive its chief pleasure not from laughing but from weeping. It wept in the delight of seeing virtue rewarded and young love come to flower after…