Born within a year of both Shaw and Wilde, Pinero was one of the most popular - and prolific - playwrights of his age. This volume contains his three best - and still most often performed - plays, each written in a different mode: The Magistrate (1885), a splendid farce; The Second Mrs Tanqueray (1893), a social problem play; and Trelawny of the 'Wells' (1898), an affectionate comedy on the inevitability of change.