Aphra Behn, Susannah Centlivre, Hannah Cowley, and Elizabeth Inchbald were the only four female playwrights in England with multiple comic successes from 1670-1800. Behn's interest in the body, Centlivre's fascination with written contracts, Cowley's nationalism, and Inchbald's discussion of divorce emerge in the comic events that are animated by the psychological mechanisms of humor. Attending to the dialogue between these comic events and the plays' more predictable comic endings illuminates the philosophical, political, and legal arguments about women and marriage that fascinated both female playwrights and the theatergoing public.

'...a wonderfully thoughtful (and useful) first book...presented crisply and persuasively, with an engaging humor...' - Choice

'There is much of interest provided in this book...' - Wendy Jones Nakanishi, English Studies - A journal of English Language and Literature

'Anderson's focus takes readers to a lively comic literature on women and marriage, an approach which makes her overall treatment all the more readable and entertaining'. - Maureen E. Mulvihill, Restoration and Eighteenth Century Theatre Research