The Man of Mode

Sir George Etherege (1634-91) was the first major Restoration playwright and the creator of the English comedy of manners. His nickname, Easy Etherege, reflects his idle way of life and studiedly insouciant manner. Etherege's first play, much influenced by Molière, was the tragicomedy The Comical Revenge; or, Love in a Tub, which was produced in 1664 at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre and took £1,000 in one month. The tragic main plot (including a duel and suicide) was in verse, while the farcical subplot (including the imprisonment of a French valet for impertinence) was in prose. In 1668 Etherege's She Would if She Could, considered the first pure comedy of manners in English, was produced at Lincoln's Inn Fields. His The Man of Mode, featuring the character Sir Fopling Flutter, the Prince of Fops, was performed with great success in 1676 at the Dorset Garden Theatre. The witty character of Dorimant was said to be based on the Earl of Rochester and that of Bellair on Etherege himself. In 1668 Etherege was sent to Turkey as secretary to the ambassador, returning three years later to take up the life of a man-about-town in London. In 1676 he was involved in a riot in which one person was killed. He married a wealthy widow, Mary Arnold, and was knighted in 1680. From 1685 until 1689 he was an envoy of James II in Regensburg but apparently took a nonchalant attitude to his duties. He was equally casual about his marriage; he had affairs with a number of actresses and is said to have had a daughter (who died young) by Elizabeth Barry. He eventually followed James II to Paris and died there a Jacobite exile.