What’s wrong with a vicious little rumor?
Absolutely nothing—as long as it’s not about you.

This comic masterpiece mercilessly dissects a social network of grotesques, gossips, lustful hypocrites and anonymous assassins of reputation who inhabit a world without privacy, morality or taste.

After sixteen years abroad Oliver Surface returns home incognito to test the characters of his nephews, Charles (a prodigal, apparently), and Joseph (a paragon, supposedly). He discovers his old friend Peter Teazle has wed a young country wife and is in marital purgatory, being victimized by a hilarious, hateful team of imbeciles and rumor-mongers.

The School for Scandal offers lessons in humiliation, innuendo and spite that are still being learned today.