The prologue and epilogue were added at the time of publication. Topical allusions range from the Collier Controversy, which began in 1698 and continued actively for more than a decade, to John Tutchin, controversial editor of _The Observator_ (which began in 1702), to a mention of the great storm of November 26, 1703, which Collier and his followers believed to be a punishment for England's wickedness, to the proclamation early in 1704 by Queen Anne prohibiting the wearing of masks at the playhouses. More important, however, is the fact that the tone of the prologue and epilogue is entirely different from that found in the play. The tempered language of a decade later than the play is not in keeping with the raucous satire directed at the three women playwrights and the rival actors at Lincoln's Inn Fields that must have kept the audience in a roar of laughter.
_The Female Wits_ is an important document to historians of the theatre, coming as it did at the very end of the Restoration period and just preceding the changes brought about by Collier's attacks upon the theatre which accelerated the establishment of sentimental comedy and tragedy. The play illuminates at least four areas about which we know very little: the personalities of the three women playwrights at the beginning of their careers, the excellent portraits of some of the little known players, the acting techniques that are parodied so broadly that it is possible to recognize the original practice, and the rehearsal customs and stage directions employed which give new light or confirm what is already known. Granted, all are outrageously exaggerated, but a discerning eye can detect the truth that lurks behind any satire, parody, or lampoon. That kernel of truth must be there, or there is nothing to laugh about.
[1] See the entry under Unknown Authors, Allardyce Nicoll, _A History of English Drama, 1660-1900_ (Cambridge, 1955), I, 441. Also see William van Lennep, _The London Stage, 1660-1800_ (Carbondale, 1965), Part I, 1660-1700, pp. 467-468.
Wing notes a 1697 edition, but an examination of the severely cropped copy of the 1704 edition at the Huntington Library gives the first clue for the creation of a ghost: the imprint was sacrificed to the Kemble-Devonshire insistence on uniformity in size, and a later hand supplied the conjectured date of presentation, not the date of publication. Noted as a questioned publication date in Woodward-McManaway, _Check List_ (no. 374), the date of 1697 was next cautiously recorded in Nicoll (_Ibidem_) as a possible date for a first edition. It then entered the Wing Catalogue as the first edition, mistakenly making the 1704 the second edition.