Overview

The play, presented at the Royal Court Theatre in 1985, starts with Mary Traverse, the enclosed daughter of a rich city merchant breaking out to explore rakish life of eighteenth-century, male-dominated London. After many experiences Mary finally returns to her father, diseased, with her daughter and disillusioned in the realisation that the injustices of this world remain. She is aware of the agon'sing price which must be paid for knowledge but her optimism for a better world to come is not entirely quenched.