Mary Pix was one of three women playwrights to debut in the London theatrical season of 1695-1696, but the only one to work consistently in the theater and to establish a serious career there over the next decade. Her six comedies and seven tragedies represent well the various trends of a difficult era for the stage, bridging the Restoration and Augustan ages. She consciously sought to emulate the first professional woman dramatist, Aphra Behn, and anticipated the strategies of the better-known Susanna Centlivre. Most of the little that is known about her has been gleaned from a few contemporary lampoons, and her life remains more obscure than those of most of her more flamboyant contemporaries.

Although her work was a staple of Thomas Betterton's theater company at Lincoln's Inn Fields and later at the Queen's Theatre, Pix's plays have drawn scant attention. Her tragedies provided formulaic vehicles for...