Classic Comedies

Maurice Charney, a distinguished Shakespeare scholar and professor emeritus at Rutgers, edited this sweeping 608-page Plume anthology spanning comedy from Aristophanes to Shaw — with Plautus, Molière, Gogol, Feydeau, and Shakespeare in between. The chronological breadth is genuinely impressive, and Charney's scholarly commentary adds context that makes the plays more accessible to students encountering them for the first time. For college courses, theater practitioners, or serious general readers of Western drama, it is a well-curated single-volume resource. A content note worth naming: some of these plays — particularly Aristophanes and Feydeau — carry adult social comedy, sexual innuendo, and satirical material that is not appropriate for younger readers. This is an adult anthology. Faith-focused families with teens should preview individual plays before assigning.