Plays on the Passions

Baillie’s eminently readable dramas stand at the crossroads of the Scottish Enlightenment and early Romanticism, and compellingly engage with questions of women’s rights. Her exploration of the passions, first published in 1798, is here reissued with a wealth of contextual materials including “The Introductory Discourse,” Baillie’s own brand of feminist literary criticism. The three plays included here are “Count Basil: A Tragedy,” and “The Tryal: A Comedy,” which show love from opposing pe...