The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fine Lady's Airs (1709), by Thomas Baker

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Title: The Fine Lady's Airs (1709)

Author: Thomas Baker

Release Date: December 25, 2004 [EBook #14467]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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The Augustan Reprint Society

Thomas Baker

THE FINE LADY'S AIRS

(1709)

With an Introduction by
John Harrington Smith

Publication Number 25

Los Angeles

William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
University of California
1950

_GENERAL EDITORS_

H. RICHARD ARCHER, _Clark Memorial Library_
RICHARD C. BOYS, _University of Michigan_
EDWARD NILES HOOKER, _University of California, Los Angeles_
JOHN LOFTIS, _University of California, Los Angeles_

_ASSISTANT EDITOR_

W. EARL BRITTON, _University of Michigan_

_ADVISORY EDITORS_

EMMETT L. AVERY, _State College of Washington_
BENJAMIN BOYCE, _Duke University_
LOUIS I. BREDVOLD, _University of Michigan_
CLEANTH BROOKS, _Yale University_
JAMES L. CLIFFORD, _Columbia University_
ARTHUR FRIEDMAN, _University of Chicago_
SAMUEL H. MONK, _University of Minnesota_
ERNEST MOSSNER, _University of Texas_
JAMES SUTHERLAND, _Queen Mary College, London_
H.T. SWEDENBERG, JR., _University of California, Los Angeles_

INTRODUCTION

In the first decade of the eighteenth century, with comedy in train to be
altered out of recognition to please the reformers and the ladies, one of
the two talented writers who attempted to keep the comic muse alive in
something like her "Restoration" form was Thomas Baker.[1] Of Baker's four
plays which reached the stage, none has been reprinted since the
eighteenth century and three exist only as originally published. Of these
three the best is _The Fine Lady's Airs_; hence its selection for the
_Reprints_.

Baker's career in the theatre was as successful as should have been
expected by any young man who after his first play attempted to swim
against rather than with the current of taste. His first effort, entitled
_The Humour of the Age_, was produc