Paris Bound (1927) is one of Barry’s most successful comedy of manners. It concerns the fashionable and rich Jim and Mary Hutton. On their wedding day, the couple decides that they will be tolerant of extramarital affairs. Their bohemian ideals come under pressure when Mary learns that Jim has visited an old sweetheart when traveling abroad.

Barry’s Holiday (1928) is an enjoyable comedy that depicts the relationship between Julia Seton, a millionaire’s daughter, and Johnny Case, a hardworking young man. The Seton family cannot tolerate Case’s determination to enjoy life when young and try to force him to join the family firm.

John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939) displays Steinbeck’s characteristic social realism and his determination to depict the lives of rural people with sympathy and understanding. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his epic novel about the struggles of an emigrant farming family who leave the dust bowl of the Midwest for the promised land of California.

Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion (1913) remains a popular comedy. It is about a professor, Henry Higgins, who decides that he can pass off a young Cockney flower-seller, Eliza Doolittle, as a society lady. Shaw’s depiction of Eliza’s rise to social acceptance allows him to comment upon the British class system while also providing his audience with light-hearted entertainment.

Royall Tyler was one of the first major American playwrights. His best-known play remains The Contrast (1787), a social comedy that contrasts the simply dignity of American mores with the foppery and pretensions of British fashion. Tyler drew upon Restoration comedy to create one of America’s first comedy of manners.