The two playlets by Richard Brinsley Sheridan reproduced here, “The Slanderers” and “Sir Peter Teazle,” preserve in its “seminal state” the finest English comedy of the 18th century. They are preserved at the Princeton University Library in the Richard Brinsley Sheridan archive within the Robert H. Taylor Collection, which arrived at Princeton in 1971 and continued to grow. After Mr. Taylor’s purchase in 1982 from Bernard Quaritch, Ltd. of the collection assembled by Pickering and Chatto -- an unrivaled assortment of early printed Sheridan material -- the library celebrated the acquisition by issuing a facsimile publication of this pair of playlets in the Sheridan manuscripts. Illustrations.