This first volume in the Coward Collection contains four plays written within a two year period when Coward and the century were still in their 20s. The volume is introduced by Sheridan Morley,
Coward's first biographer.
Hay Fever
, a comedy of bad manners, concerns a weekend with friends of the Bliss family, who have all been invited independently for a weekend at their country house near Maidenhead.
The Vortex
was a controversial drama in its time, introducing drug-addiction onto the stage at a time when alcoholism was barely mentioned.
Fallen Angels
, which is written for two star actresses was described as 'degenerate', 'vile', 'obscene', 'shocking' - the second half of the play is entirely taken up with an alcoholic duologue between the two women.
Easy Virtue
is an elegant, laconic tribute to a lost world of drawing-room dramas, no other writer went more directly to the jugular of that moralistic, tight-lipped but fundamentally hypocritical 20s society.
"He is simply a phenomenon, and one that is unlikely to occur ever again in theatre history" Terence Rattigan