The Conscious Lovers

In The Conscious Lovers, Richard Steele offers a comedy, drama first published in 1722. Richard Steele uses the form to consider conflict, performance, public speech, and the pressures that expose character, keeping the emphasis on how ideas become choices, conflicts, and consequences. Rather than depending on topical novelty, the book builds its interest through the interaction of character, situation, and idea. The book’s distinctive character comes from a dialogue-driven form whose tensions unfold through voice, gesture, and confrontation. At roughly 27,049 words with a fairly easy reading profile, it offers a reading commitment that is easy to judge before beginning while still leaving room for close attention. Readers still return to it because of its life both on the page and in performance. The result is a book that rewards readers who enjoy dialogue-driven form whose tensions unfold through voice, gesture, and confrontation while leaving room for reflection after the final page.