[5] He moved to London to study law at the Middle Temple, but preferred literature, drama, and the fashionable life.

This early work, written when he was about 17 years of age, gained him recognition among men of letters and entry into the literary world.

He became a disciple of John Dryden whom he met through gatherings of literary circles held at Will's Coffeehouse in the Covent Garden district of London.

Congreve was distantly related to Lady Elizabeth Hastings, whose family owned Ledston and was part of the London intelligentsia.

This period was distinguished by the fact that female roles were beginning to be played predominantly by women, which was evident in Congreve's work.

This was partly in response to changes in taste, as the public turned away from the sort of high-brow sexual comedy of manners in which he specialized.

During his time in Jamaica, he wrote poetry instead of full-length dramatic productions and translated the works of Homer, Juvenal, Ovid, and Horace.

Congreve withdrew from the theatre and lived the rest of his life on residuals from his early work, the royalties received when his plays were produced, as well as his private income.

Congreve never married; in his own era and through subsequent generations, he was famous for his friendships with prominent actresses and noblewomen for whom he wrote major parts in all his plays.

He was involved in a carriage accident in late September 1728 from which he never recovered (having probably received an internal injury); he died in London in January 1729, and was buried in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.