About the book: 1956 / Sheridan was the largest satirist playwright of the 18th century in England. A democrat educator, a writer of remarkable realistic talent, he gave the most complete artistic embodiment to the problems that worried the minds of the progressive people of his time. Sheridan's work completes the history of the development of English democratic comedy of the Enlightenment. The play "Duenna" was written in the form of a comic, or, in the terminology of that time, a "ballad" opera. It is not the delusions of youth that are ridiculed in this play, but such typical qualities of the bourgeois as self-interest, greed, and contempt for human feelings. The nobleman Don Jeromo wants to marry his daughter Inessa to the wealthy moneylender Mendozo. But the daughter loves Antonio, the noble but poor friend of her brother Fernando, and her heart is broken. Here Duenna, Inessa’s teacher, appears on the stage, deciding to get her hands on the rich old man Mendozo and at the same time arrange the happiness of the young.