 Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A classic you've never read.
Lover's Vows, by Elizabeth Inchbald. In Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, there's a part where the characters stage an amateur production of a scandalous play. Austen clearly expected her readers to be familiar with Lover's Vows, but the characters' squabbles over who would play which role meant nothing to me at the time. After discovering Jane Austen's Bookshelf, I was inspired to look it up. The play was far less scandalous than advertised (but much funnier). The scandal: at the beginning of the play, Agatha has to explain to her adult son Frederick the truth about his paternity. Twenty years ago, she was seduced by the Baron, who then abandoned her to marry another woman. Elsewhere, the Baron (now widowed) sees his daughter Amelia being courted by a man whose attitude bears an uncomfortable resemblance to his younger self. Amelia, meanwhile, is secretly in love with the clergyman who serves as her tutor and her father's advisor. (The teacher/student thing is a bit squicky by today's standards, but in that era the class difference was a much bigger deal, of course.) There are a lot of funny moments, like Frederick's less-than-ideal first meeting with his father. And then there's the butler, who can never answer a simple question, but insists on reciting lengthy rhymed doggerel instead. By the end, everyone is reconciled, the right couples marry, and everyone's behaving quite morally for a "scandalous" play.
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