Arthur PinerowroteThe Second Mrs. Tanquerayin 1893 after penning several successful farces. Playing on the “woman with a past” plot that was popular in melodramas, Pinero steered it in a more serious direction, centering the play around the social consequences arising when Aubrey Tanqueray remarries in an attempt to redeem a woman with a questionable past.
The play’s structure is based on the principles of the “well-made play” popular throughout the 19th-century....
