The Slaves of Society: A Comedy in Covers

The satire crackles from the first page. In the gilded drawing rooms of the British aristocracy, status is everything and love is merely currency. When a rising music-hall star threatens to breach the velvet ropes of high society, the Marchioness and her marriageable daughter Lady Victoria must defend their world against the unbearable impertinence of talent and beauty. Allen Upward's 1900 comedy dissects the absurd lengths the upper classes will go to preserve their precious hierarchies, even as they quietly envying the freedom of those beneath them. A brewery heir offers respectability, but the heart wants what it wants and the drawing-room wits have never been sharper. Upward nails the hypocrisy of a society that preaches propriety while gossiping over champagne, and his targets remain surprisingly familiar a century later. For readers who delight in Wildean banter and the guilty pleasure of watching the upper crust thoroughly embarrass themselves.