Revels Plays Companion Library Series

Volpone

by Ben Jonson

Published 1 January 1958

Renaissance comedy, first performed in 1605. Includes complete text in modernized English, critical and explanatory notes and Introduction. From the Yale Ben Jonson edition.

This edition of Jonson's great Roman tragedy is more intensively researched than any that has previously appeared. The text is based on extensive collation of the 1605 and 1616 versions and takes the earlier version as "copy-text." The introduction offers a radically new assessment of Jonson's "historiography" and his treatment of sources. It provides an explanation for the charge of treason leveled at Jonson over Sejanus and for which he had to answer to the Privy Council. Explanatory notes to the text provide much new information to facilitate a properly informed reading of the play.

The Poetaster

by Ben Jonson

Published 1 August 1985

Set in Ancient Rome, "Poetaster" offers one of the first and most subtle statements in English of the Augustan cultural ideal. Jonson contrasts Augustus' wise rule with an English polity dominated (like the satge) by malice, intrigue and envy. This text examines these different strands so skilfully interwoven by Jonson, and argues for a reassessment of "Poetaster" as one of the most ideologically interesting of all early modern plays. The accompanying explanatory notes guide the reader through the personal and political illusions which gave the play its immediate satirical impact.

Eastward Ho!

by George Chapman, etc., Ben Jonson, and John Marston

Published January 1973

This collaborative masterpiece of hilarious city comedy was performed by the Children of the Revels at the Blackfriars playhouse in 1605. The story is of an allegorical simplicity that lends itself to satire of civic mores and traditions as well as to parody of the sentimental, idealising London comedy presented at the amphitheatres in the suburbs: Goldsmith Touchstone, an upright London citizen, has one modest and one ambitious daughter, one righteous and one disreputable apprentice; virtue is rewarded, ruthlessness comes to grief - and receives a drenching in the muddy Thames. The introduction to this edition discusses various methods of establishing authorship and highlights the irony of the collaborators' comic vision of contemporary London life.

Bartholomew Fair

by Ben Jonson

Published 1 January 1960

Ben Jonson's comedy "Bartholomew Fair", which, after holding the stage for over a century, is now less well known, is offered here in an edition, based on the text of the first edition, which affords help to the modern producer and reader. In this play, written and acted in 1614, Jonson produced his first comedy since "The Alchemist" in 1610. Both that play and "Volpone" (1605) had presented an extraordinary variety of corrupt energies withing an intricate moral and aesthetic structure. To some critics, the looser construction and the less trenchant satire of "Bartholomew Fair" have seemed to show Jonson returning to the "loose multiplicity" of his earlier works. Horsman reconsiders this notion, illustrating how Jonson fills the play with "varied humours", which preserve the appearance of freedom while never actually losing control.

The Widow's Tears

by George Chapman

Published 1 November 1966

Antonio and Mellida

by John Marston

Published January 1983

Antonio and Mellida was the first play by John Marston performed by the newly revived Paul's Company in 1599. Marston sought to display a variety of talents, comic, tragic, satiric and historical, advertising his own dramatic skills and the prowess of the choristers of Paul's. The play is based on incidents in the reigns of Sforza, Francesco, Galeazzo and Lodovico, who were Dukes of Milan in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Marston displays a detailed knowledge of the dramatic works of Shakespeare, Seneca, Kyd and Nashe as well as the prose of Sidney, Erasmus, Montaigne, Florio and others. This edition relates the play to a wide variety of literary contexts. It includes a comprehensive introduction, an analysis of staging, and full commentary. The text is based on a coliation of all known copies of the 1602 Quarto and is presented in a thoroughly modernised format.

The Staple of News

by Ben Jonson

Published 1 January 1975

Written in 1625 at the height of Jonson's career, "The Staple of News" is a lively satire in which Jonson takes a stand on various developments in later Jacobean society, including the emergence of an organized political journalism whose trade in news "stories" he saw as undermining his own endeavour to educate public awareness through political fictions. This modernized text includes an account of the play's printing history and a commentary which sets Jonson's art in its intellectual and social context, while the introduction seeks to suggest something of its theatrical potential.

The Fawn

by John Marston

Published January 1983

The Insatiate Countess

by John Marston

Published 25 April 1986

The Insatiate Countess is an early Jacobean era stage play, a tragedy first published in 1613. The play is generally attributed to Marston, but some regard Barkstead and Machin as contributors.

The Devil is an Ass

by Ben Jonson

Published 5 May 1994

This edition of "The Devil is an Ass" (1616) aims to provide an insight into Jonson's life and work, the theatrical qualities of the play, its political background and its textual history. In his introduction, Peter Happe looks at the special place of the play in Jonson's own life, his interest in London, the theatrical setting of the play and its sources and analogues. There are critical and explanatory commentaries and a glossarial index. The play is seen in its historical and political context, by linking it with late medieval and Elizabethan plays, as well as with the Jacobean stage. The text is meticulously and reliably edited, with modernized spelling for today's reader. A commentary is provided to explain difficult or significant passages. The stage history of the play also includes very recent productions.

Antonio's Revenge

by John Marston and Reavley Gair

Published 25 April 1986

This edition seeks to evaluate Antonio's Revenge not merely as a literary text but as a drama for a particular company, in a specific theatre. The scholarly introduction explores the high degree of originality in Marston's dramatic techniques and establishes him as a leading innovator in both the language and the dramaturgy of his day. Ostensibly the second part of Antonio and Mellida, a satiric romance published in 1599, Antonio's Revenge differs in both theme and linguistic style. Reavley Gair offers an insightful analysis of the play's relationship with Shakespeare's Hamlet -- written at about the same time -- and a new interpretation of the relations between dramatic companies at the Globe and the Paul's Theatre.

The Conspiracy and Tragedy of Charles, Duke of Byron

by George Chapman

Published April 1980

Excerpt from The Conspiracie, and Tragoedy of Charles, Duke of Byron, Marshall of France: Acted Lately in Two Playes, at the Blacke-Friers and Other Publique Stages

Of which impoyfozxed Spring; when pal/icy driflkts, He eerfi's igz growmg great 5 and rifing, fmk 7/9151s new 61 m a find fee m by rm alt, how honors flood Ebbes into ayre, when men are Great, not Good.

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The New Inn

by Ben Jonson

Published 25 April 1986

The New Inn, or The Light Heart is a Caroline era stage play, a comedy by English playwright and poet Ben Jonson. The New Inn is set in an inn-house in Barnett called the "Light Heart," whose host is Goodstock. Lady Frances Frampul invites some lords and gentlemen to wait on her at the inn. A melancholy gentlemen, Lord Lovel, has been lodged there some days before. In the third act, he is demanded by Lady Frampul what love is and describes so vividly the effects of love that she becomes enamoured of him. Lady Frampul's chambermaid, Prudence, dresses up as queen for the day and presides over a mock "court of love." As part of their theatrical project, Prudence and Lady Frampul decide to dress up the Host's adopted son Franck in a cross-gender attire as Laetitia, a waiting-woman. Lord Beaufort, guest to Lady Frampul, falls in love with Laetitia and marries her in secret, only to be denounced for marrying a boy.

Bussy D'Ambois

by George Chapman

Published December 1964