The School for Scandal

The School for Scandal is Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s brilliant comedy of manners, first staged in 1777 and never long absent from the theatre since. In the drawing rooms of fashionable London a circle of gossips led by Lady Sneerwell and Mrs Candour trade in ruined reputations for sport. Around them turns the test of two brothers, the openly wild but good-hearted Charles Surface and his smooth, hypocritical elder brother Joseph, whose true characters their wealthy uncle returns from abroad to discover. The famous screen scene, in which a hidden eavesdropper is exposed, is one of the great moments of English stage comedy. This free PDF and EPUB offers the complete play.