The Belle's Stratagem

Belle's Stratagem, The

    Author: Hannah Cowley

    First Performance: 1780, London

    Published: 1782

    Genre: Com. in 5 acts; prose

    Setting: London, 1780

    Cast: 15m, 6f, extras

Mr Hardy has arranged for his daughter Letitia to marry Doricourt, newly returned from the Continent. At their first meeting since childhood, Letitia is strongly attracted to Doricourt, but he is indifferent to her. She therefore plans a stratagem to win his love: she will play at being an ignorant country girl, while enchanting him at a masked ball with her wit and charm. Doricourt falls in love with the belle at the masquerade and so feigns madness to delay the dreaded wedding. Reluctantly, however, he finally agrees to marriage, partly from a sense of duty, partly because he is told that the woman at the ball is a kept mistress. After the...

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