Literary studies: plays and playwrights Books
Manchester University Press The Merchant of Venice
Book SynopsisBoika Sokolova and Kirilka Stavreva’s second edition of the stage history of The Merchant of Venice interweaves into the chronology of James Bulman’s first edition richly contextualised chapters on Max Reinhardt, Peter Zadek, and the first production of the play in Mandatory Palestine, directed by Leopold Jessner. While the focus of the book is on post-1990s productions across Europe and the USA, and on film, the Segue provides a broad survey of the interpretative shifts in the play’s performance from the 1930s to the second decade of the twenty-first century. Individual chapters explore productions by Peter Zadek, Trevor Nunn, Robert Sturua, Edward Hall, Rupert Goold, Daniel Sullivan, and Karin Coonrod. An extensive film section including silent film offers close analysis of Don Selwyn’s Te Tangata Whai Rawa o Weniti and Michael Radford’s adaptation. Accessible and engaging, the book will interest students, academics, and general readers.Table of ContentsPART II An Elizabethan Merchant: performance and contextII Henry Irving and the great traditionIII Wayward genius in the high temple of bardolotry: Theodore KomisarjevskyIV Aesthetes in a rugger club: Jonathan Miller and Laurence OlivierV The BBC Merchant: diminishing returnsVI Cultural stereotyping and audience response: Bill Alexander and Antony SherVII Shylock and the pressures of historyPART IISegue The Merchant of Venice: pressures of war, ideology, and the crises of late capitalismI Magical spectacles and nightmarish times: Max Reinhardt’s productions of The Merchant of VeniceII Peter Zadek’s challenges to the post-war German legacy of The Merchant of VeniceIII A post-Holocaust balancing act: The Merchant of Venice directed by Trevor Nunn at the National Theatre, London (1999)IV Desperate outsiders in a money-drunk world: The Merchant of Venice directed by Daniel Sullivan (2010) and Rupert Goold (2011)V Crises of the new millennium: The Merchant of Venice directed by Robert Sturua (2000) and Edward Hall (2009)VI The Merchant of Venice on filmVII The search for justice: The Merchant of Venice in Mandatory Palestine (1936) and the Venetian Ghetto (2016)Appendix A Some significant twentieth- and twenty-first century productions of The Merchant of Venice Appendix B Major actors and creative staff for productions discussedBibliographyIndex
£76.50
Manchester University Press Old Fortunatus: By Thomas Dekker
Book SynopsisWith its fantasy of magical travel and inexhaustible riches, Thomas Dekker’s Old Fortunatus is the quintessential early modern journeying play. The adventures of Fortunatus and his sons, aided by a magical purse and wishing-hat, offers the period’s most overt celebration of the pleasures of travel, as well as a sustained critique of the dangers of intemperance and prodigality. Written following a period of financial difficulty for Dekker, the play is also notable for its fascination with the symbolic, mercantile and ethical uses of gold.This Revels Plays edition is the first fully annotated, single-volume critical edition of Old Fortunatus. It offers scholarly discussion of the play’s performance and textual history, including attention to the German version printed and performed in the early seventeenth century. It provides a long overdue critical reappraisal of this unjustly neglected play.Trade Review'McInnis has produced an admirable, rigorous, and reliable scholarly edition. He has given criticism a chance to match this editorial achievement with insights of comparable height and nuance.'Renaissance and Reformation / Renaissance et Réforme'This new edition of Old Fortunatus is a valuable intervention. It brings the play into focus for advanced teaching and research. It suggests some of the ways Dekker’s dramaturgy embodies the possessive imagination that structures English travel writing and proto-colonial fantasy in the period.'Early Theatre'If Old Fortunatus has another moment, it might be now, when technologies of trade and travel elate and overwhelm us, and the world seems to flicker between far off and at hand. Like other Revels editions, this one offers an authoritatively edited, modernized, and annotated text, a comprehensive textual and historical introduction, and a short performance history. McInnis’s introduction and notes are exceptional even by the high standards of the Revels series, adroitly recounting the wanderings of the Fortunatus story and the complicated history of Dekker’s playtext. McInnis’s particular expertise on travel narratives and lost plays shows to advantage, as he also sets Dekker’s play into the performance context of other contemporary plays. McInnis’s Old Fortunatus is an example of how a good edition does more than simply make a play newly available; it serves as waystation to a way of grasping a new world.'SEL: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 -- .Table of ContentsList of illustrationsAbbreviationsIntroduction Authorship and the lost play(s) The text The German play Sources Performance history Critical reception Act and scene divisions Press-variantsOld FortunatusIndex
£21.00
Manchester University Press Shakespeare's Resources
Book SynopsisGeoffrey Bullough’s The Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare (1957-75) established a vocabulary and a method for linking Shakespeare’s plays with a series of texts on which they were thought to be based. Shakespeare’s Resources revisits and interrogates the methodology that has prevailed since then and proposes a number of radical departures from Bullough’s model. The tacitly accepted linear model of ‘source’ and ‘influence’ that critics and scholars have wrestled with is here reconceptualised as a dynamic process in which texts interact and generate meanings that domesticated versions of intertextuality do not adequately account for. The investigation uncovers questions of exactly how Shakespeare ‘read’, what he read, the practical conditions in which narratives were encountered, and how he re-deployed earlier versions that he had used in his later work.Trade Review'Drakakis finds the idea of ‘source’ or ‘authority’ too narrow. The sheer scope of materials to which Shakespeare had access, the the circumstances in which the playwright utilized them, he argues, mean that ‘source’ and ‘authority’ imply a ‘quasi-theological’ concept of creation. Instead of ‘source’ or ‘authority’, Drakakis offers ‘resources’, a term that, as he uses it, is much more open-ended. A resource could be a book, but it could also be a half-forgotten encounter or, in Shakespeare’s case, the experience of having written an earlier play ... Each of his chapters is deeply engaged with the history of Shakespeare scholarship, on which he commentates with generosity and from which he quotes at length ... He closes on a musical metaphor, presenting Shakespeare as one who could ‘repeat tunes, recall motifs to mind, imitate themes and memes, improvise on existing material and, on a number of occasions, innovate’.Times Literary SupplementTimes Literary Supplement -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction1 The legacy of Geoffrey Bullough 2 Myths of origin3 Textual economies4 Trafficking in intertextuality5 The nature of con-text 6 From formula to text: Theatre, form, meme and reciprocity7 The Thorello Plays: Shakespeare, Jonson and the circulation of theatrical ideas8 Shakespeare as resource Conclusion – The elephant in the graveyardBibliographyIndex
£76.50
Manchester University Press Sound Effects: Hearing the Early Modern Stage
Book SynopsisThis book shows that the sounds of the early modern stage do not only signify but are also significant. Sounds are weighted with meaning, offering a complex system of allusions. Playwrights such as Jonson and Shakespeare developed increasingly experimental soundscapes, from the storms of King Lear (1605) and Pericles (1607) to the explosive laboratory of The Alchemist (1610). Yet, sound is dependent on the subjectivity of listeners; this book is conscious of the complex relationship between sound as made and sound as heard. Sound effects should not resound from scene to scene without examination, any more than a pun can be reshaped in dialogue without acknowledgement of its shifting connotations. This book listens to sound as a rhetorical device, able to penetrate the ears and persuade the mind, to influence and to affect.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Follow the noise1 Soundgrams on stage: sonic allusions and commonplace sounds2 Hearing the night: nocturnal scenes and unsound effects3 The head and the (play)house: bodies and sound in Ben Jonson4 'Unheard’ and ‘untold’: the promise of sound in ShakespeareConclusionConclusion
£76.50
Manchester University Press Cowboy Hamlets and Zombie Romeos: Shakespeare in
Book SynopsisThe book presents a systematic method of interpreting Shakespeare film adaptations based on their cinematic genres. Its approach is both scholarly and reader-friendly, and its subject is fundamentally interdisciplinary, combining the findings of Shakespeare scholarship with film and media studies, particularly genre theory. The book is organised into six large chapters, discussing films that form broad generic groups. Part I looks at three genres from the classical Hollywood era (western, melodrama and gangster-noir), while Part II deals with three contemporary blockbuster genres (teen film, undead horror and biopic). Beside a few better-known examples of mainstream cinema, the volume also highlights the Shakespearean elements in several nearly forgotten films, bringing them back to critical attention.Trade Review'Kinga Földváry’s new book is a masterful treatment of numerous genres that not only provides crucial descriptions and historical information but also lucidly explains the intersections between various generic discourses and their disparate iterations.'Melissa Croteau, Adaptation'[T]his is a well-structured study that examines a wide variety of movies in some detail. It provides a useful reference for the genre, adaptation, and Shakespeare studies and is an entertaining addition to the discourse on screen Shakespeare.'Peter Lewis, Cahiers Élisabéthains: A Journal of English Renaissance Studies -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction: Shakespeare meets genre filmPart I: Classical Hollywood cinema1 Will in the Wild West: western adaptations of Shakespeare2 Shakespeare the tear-jerker: from woman’s film to global melodrama3 Dark-minded Othellos, mobster Macbeths: film noir, gangster, gangster noirPart II: Contemporary blockbusters4 Back to school, Will: Shakespeare the teen idol5 Shakespeare the undead: a renaissance of vampires and zombies6 Will, Bill and the Earl: versions of the author in contemporary biopicsConclusionIndex
£19.00
Manchester University Press The Aesthetic Exception: Essays on Art, Theatre,
Book SynopsisThe aesthetic exception theorises anew the relation between art and politics. It challenges critical trends that discount the role of aesthetic autonomy, to impulsively reassert art as an effective form of social engagement. But it equally challenges those on the flipside of the efficacy debate, who insist that art’s politics is limited to a recondite space of ‘autonomous resistance’. The book shows how each side of the efficacy debate overlooks art’s exceptional status and its social mediations. Mobilising philosophy and cultural theory, and employing examples from visual art, performance, and theatre, it proposes four alternative tests to ‘effect’ to offer a nuanced account of art’s political character. Those tests examine how art relates to politics as a practice that articulates its historical conjuncture, and how it prefigures the ‘new’ through simulations capable of activating the political life of the spectator.Trade Review'Starting with a seemingly simple question ‘Can art be political?’, this book opens a Pandora’s box that reveals the paradoxical nature of the relationship between art and life, the impossibility of taxonomy of political theatre, on the one hand, and its potential as a hermeneutical tool, on the other, and when it comes to postdramatic theatre and theory – nothing is anymore as it seemed before … The depth of analysis is impressive, whenever we feel we have reached a conceptual stable ground, Fisher probes further and invites us to question deeper!'Silvija Jestrovic, University of Warwick'Fisher is a joy to read! He writes with clarity and urgency but without oversimplification and gratuitous polemic. He draws on the whole toolkit of interdisciplinary thought and covers a vast terrain in contemporary theatre, but he never relies on jargon and avoids any form of superficiality … with cautious optimism, [he] takes the lead of key artists and heads out towards new horizons of possibility, en route, he has revitalized our understanding of both politics and aesthetics.'Nikos Papastergiadis, University of Melbourne -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction The horizon of the aestheticPart I The aesthetic exception1 The paradox of the aesthetic exception2 Crossing the threshold3 The institution of art: critical and theoretical reflectionsPart II Political art after the communicative turn4 The classical debate revisited: Sartre, Brecht, Adorno5 Art of the communicative turn: Habermas and the political6 What is the proper way to display a US flag? – the work of “dissensual speech” in artPart III Taxonomy of the political theatre7 Foundational problems and problems of foundation8 Displacement effects: Althusser’s “Brecht” and the theatre of the conjuncture9 Activist theatre of the conjuncture: the case of Janam and the street theatre in India10 The “closure” of the political theatre and the critique of post-dramatic reason11 The political theatre redefined12 The theatre of the planetary conjuncture: Milo Rau’s Congo Tribunal13 On taxonomic strategiesIndex
£76.50
Manchester University Press Shakespeare's Resources
Book SynopsisGeoffrey Bullough’s The Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare (1957-75) established a vocabulary and a method for linking Shakespeare’s plays with a series of texts on which they were thought to be based. Shakespeare’s Resources revisits and interrogates the methodology that has prevailed since then and proposes a number of radical departures from Bullough’s model. The tacitly accepted linear model of ‘source’ and ‘influence’ that critics and scholars have wrestled with is here reconceptualised as a dynamic process in which texts interact and generate meanings that domesticated versions of intertextuality do not adequately account for. The investigation uncovers questions of exactly how Shakespeare ‘read’, what he read, the practical conditions in which narratives were encountered, and how he re-deployed earlier versions that he had used in his later work.Trade Review'Drakakis finds the idea of ‘source’ or ‘authority’ too narrow. The sheer scope of materials to which Shakespeare had access, the the circumstances in which the playwright utilized them, he argues, mean that ‘source’ and ‘authority’ imply a ‘quasi-theological’ concept of creation. Instead of ‘source’ or ‘authority’, Drakakis offers ‘resources’, a term that, as he uses it, is much more open-ended. A resource could be a book, but it could also be a half-forgotten encounter or, in Shakespeare’s case, the experience of having written an earlier play ... Each of his chapters is deeply engaged with the history of Shakespeare scholarship, on which he commentates with generosity and from which he quotes at length ... He closes on a musical metaphor, presenting Shakespeare as one who could ‘repeat tunes, recall motifs to mind, imitate themes and memes, improvise on existing material and, on a number of occasions, innovate’.Times Literary SupplementTimes Literary Supplement -- .Table of ContentsIntroduction1 The legacy of Geoffrey Bullough 2 Myths of origin3 Textual economies4 Trafficking in intertextuality5 The nature of con-text 6 From formula to text: Theatre, form, meme and reciprocity7 The Thorello Plays: Shakespeare, Jonson and the circulation of theatrical ideas8 Shakespeare as resource Conclusion – The elephant in the graveyardBibliographyIndex
£23.75
Manchester University Press Serial Shakespeare
Book SynopsisShakespeare is everywhere in contemporary media culture. This book explores the reasons for this dissemination and reassemblage. Ranging widely over American TV drama, it discusses the use of citations in Westworld and The Wire, demonstrating how they tap into but also transform Shakespeare?s preferred themes and concerns. It then examines the presentation of female presidents in shows such as Commander in Chief and House of Cards, revealing how they are modelled on figures of female sovereignty from his plays. Finally, it analyses the specifically Shakespearean dramaturgy of Deadwood and The Americans. Ultimately, the book brings into focus the way serial TV drama appropriates Shakespeare in order to give voice to the unfinished business of the American cultural imaginary.
£19.00
Read Books A Lover's Complaint
Book SynopsisRead & Co. Classics presents this new beautiful edition of William Shakespeare''s poem, "A Lover''s Complaint", featuring a specially commissioned new biography of William Shakespeare. The poem tells the story of a young women lamenting her love for a man who once charmed and abandoned her. As she weeps at the edge of a river, an old man approaches, compelling her to recount her tale of sorrow. It was published as a conclusion to the original edition of Shakespeare''s Sonnets, in 1609. Shakespeare's sonnets beautifully explore the themes of love and beauty, time and mortality. William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) was an English playwright, poet, and actor. He is considered to be the greatest writer in the English language and is celebrated as the world''s most famous dramatist.
£10.99
Hodder & Stoughton Searching for Juliet: The Lives and Deaths of
Book Synopsis'Invigorating ... engaging ... thrilling' Samantha Ellis, GUARDIAN'An astonishing tour-de-force . . . Juliet has found the biographer she deserves' Marion TurnerA cultural, historical, and literary exploration of the birth, death, and legacy of the ultimate romantic heroine - Shakespeare's Juliet CapuletJuliet Capulet is the heartbeat of the world's most famous love story. She is an enduring romantic icon. And she is a captivating, brilliant, passionate teenage girl who is read and interpreted afresh by each new generation.Searching for Juliet takes us from the Renaissance origin stories behind William Shakespeare's child bride to the boy actor who inspired her creation onstage. From enslaved people in the Caribbean to Italian fascists in Verona, and real-life lovers in Afghanistan. From the Victorian stage to 1960s cinema, Baz Luhrmann, and beyond.Sophie Duncan draws on rich cultural and historical sources and new research to explore the legacy and reach of Romeo and Juliet far beyond the literary sphere. With warmth, wit, and insight, she shows us why Juliet is for now, for ever, for everyone.'Deeply researched and wryly written, Searching for Juliet makes us think again about a character and a story we thought we knew' Robert Douglas-Fairhurst'Original, stylish, and compelling . . . It's a marvellous book, and one that delivers a powerfully inspiring message to the young Juliets of our own troubled times' Miranda Seymour'A powerful, witty, and provocative exploration of sex and gender, youth and age, love and death' Anna BeerTrade ReviewWitty and scholarly -- Jonathan Bate * Sunday Telegraph *Roving, animated . . . Duncan approaches her subject from all angles, turning Juliet like a gem in the light . . . [and] remains passionately alive to her subject, driven by a genuine affection for a teenager who has survived many attempts at clumsy marketing -- Sophie Elmhirst * Sunday Times *Invigorating . . . Duncan is an engaging guide to Juliet's complex afterlives . . . This book is crammed with interesting nuggets . . . What makes Searching for Juliet so thrilling is the way Duncan weaves all these threads into a compelling history of a singular heroine -- Samantha Ellis * Guardian *Witty and illuminating . . . Duncan is a genial guide and an excellent storyteller with an obvious devotion to her subject . . . Duncan's verve and curiosity, combined with her intimate knowledge of Shakespeare's play, carry the reader along. She has written a history of Juliet that is as vital and provocative as the character herself -- Kirsten Tambling * Literary Review *A buoyant account of Juliet's varied presence on stage and screen but also in real-life contexts as unlikely as Afghan warzones and Jamaican plantations . . . "We each see our own Juliet", Duncan maintains, and her book is richly informed by the ideological, commercial, political and personal motivations behind the many viewpoints she uncovers -- Margreta de Grazia * Times Literary Supplement *Deft, compelling and thoroughly researched * Prospect *I love the combination of authority, research, anger, and dry wit. Sophie Duncan shows us that Juliet has created templates for young women that are both enabling and stifling - and traces that paradox unflinchingly across slave plantations, teenage mental health, and the erotics of the beautiful dead girl. Searching for Juliet offers the play and its reception a fresh kind of attention: a sort of tough love which avoids sentimentality without becoming cynical. Really eye-opening -- Emma Smith, author of This Is ShakespeareShakespeare's Juliet represents far more than passionate but doomed teenage love, and in her brilliant new book Sophie Duncan shows us why. Deeply researched and wryly written, Searching for Juliet makes us think again about a character and a story we thought we knew -- Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, author of The Turning PointSophie Duncan's wonderful new book tells the story of the most famous love story of Western literature as you've never seen it before. This story is an astonishing tour-de-force . . . Duncan does not shy away from the dark side of this story but her absolute passion for the subject shines through on every page. Juliet has found the biographer she deserves -- Marion Turner, author of The Wife of Bath: A BiographyIn Verona, an office answers letters posted to Juliet from all over the world. At college, Romeo and Juliet is the top Shakespeare pick by students for their studies. Tracing Juliet's afterlife through many an enthralling by-way, Sophie Duncan begins this original, stylish and compelling narrative with the enthralling and sometimes poignant story of the boy actors and young women who first took on the role of Shakespeare's first eponymous - and wonderfully spirited - heroine. It's a marvellous book, and one that delivers a powerfully inspiring message to the young Juliets of our own troubled times -- Miranda Seymour, author of I Used to Live Here Once: The Haunted Life of Jean RhysBreathtaking in its range, this is far more than a deep dive into an ocean of Juliets (although it is, gloriously, that): it is a powerful, witty, and provocative exploration of sex and gender, youth and age, love and death -- Dr Anna Beer, author of Eve Bites Back: An Alternative History of English LiteratureBursting with energy, wit, and page-turning satisfaction, Sophie Duncan's book unpacks the rich, and sometimes uncomfortable cultural history of Shakespeare's Juliet -- Gilli Bush-Bailey, author of Treading the Bawds: Actresses and Playwrights on the Late Stuart StageSophie Duncan uses her expertise in theatre history to give us both a biography of Shakespeare's Juliet and a capacious cultural study of people and politics. Duncan takes us from Shakespeare's stage through plantation slaves to Mussolini's Italy. She writes with wit and acumen, so that the story of Juliet across the centuries is imbued with personality and compassion. This is an extraordinary achievement -- Laurie Maguire, author of The Rhetoric of the Page
£22.50
Hodder & Stoughton A Love Letter to Europe: An outpouring of sadness
Book SynopsisHow are great turning points in history experienced by individuals?As Britain pulls away from Europe great British writers come together to give voice to their innermost feelings. These writers include novelists, writers of books for children, of comic books, humourists, historians, biographers, nature writers, film writers, travel writers, writers young and old and from an extraordinary range of backgrounds. Most are famous perhaps because they have won the Booker or other literary prizes, written bestsellers, changed the face of popular culture or sold millions of records. Others are not yet household names but write with depth of insight and feeling.There is some extraordinary writing in this book. Some of these pieces are expressions of love of particular places in Europe. Some are true stories, some nostalgic, some hopeful. Some are cries of pain. There are hilarious pieces. There are cries of pain and regret. Some pieces are quietly devastating. All are passionate.Conceived as a love letter to Europe, this book may also help reawaken love for Britain. It shows the unique richness and diversity of British cultures, a multitude of voices in harmony.Contributors include:Hugh Aldersey-Williams, Philip Ardagh, Jake Arnott, Patricia Atkinson, Paul Atterbury, Richard Beard, Mary Beard, Don Boyd, Melvyn Bragg, Gyles Brandreth, Kathleen Burke, James Buxton, Philip Carr, Brian Catling, Shami Chakrabarti, Chris Cleave, Mark Cocker, Peter Conradi , Heather Cooper, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Roger Crowley, David Crystal, William Dalrymple, Lindsey Davies, Margaret Drabble, Mark Ellen, Richard Evans, Michel Faber, Sebastian Faulks, Ranulph Fiennes, Robert Fox, James Fox, Neil Gaiman, Evelyn Glennie, James Hanning, Nick Hayes, Alan Hollinghurst, Gabby Hutchinson-Crouch, Will Hutton, Robert Irwin, Holly Johnson , Liane Jones, Ruth Jones, Sam Jordison, Kapka Kassabova, AL Kennedy, Hermione Lee, Prue Leith, Patrick Lenox, Roger Lewis, David Lindo, Penelope Lively, Beth Lync, Richard Mabey, Sue MacGregor, Ian Martin, Frank McDonough, Jonathan Meades, Andrew Miller, Deborah Moggach, Ben Moor, Alan Moore, Paul Morley, Jackie Morris, Charles Nicholl, Richard Overy, Chris Riddell, Adam Roberts, Tony Robinson, Lee Rourke, Sophie Sabbage, Marcus Sedgwick, Richard Shirreff, Paul Stanford, Isy Suttie, Sandi Toksvig, Colin Tudge, Ed Vulliamy, Anna Whitelock, Kate Williams, Michael Wood, Louisa Young
£10.44
Nova Science Publishers Inc Shakespeare and the Emblem Writers: An Exposition
Book SynopsisFew only are the remarks absolutely needed by way of introduction to a work which within itself sufficiently explains and carries out a new method of illustration for the dramas of Shakespeare. This book is the results of genuine study. The results arrived at, though imperfect, are also grounded on real similitudes between Shakespeare and his predecessors and contemporaries; and those similitudes, parallelisms, or adaptations of thought, by whichever name distinguished, often arose from the actual impression made on his mind and memory by the Emblematists whose works he had seen, read, and used.Table of ContentsList of Illustrations; Preface; Emblems and their Varieties, with some Early Example; Sketch of Emblem Book Literature previous to a.d. 1616; Shakespeares Attainments and Opportunities with respect to the Fine Arts; The Knowledge of Emblem Books in Britain, and general Indications that Shakespeare was acquainted with them; Six direct References in the Pericles to Books of Emblems, some of their Devices described, and of their Mottoes quoted; Classification of the Correspondencies and Parallelisms of Shakespeare with Emblem Writers; Miscellaneous Emblems, Recapitulation, and Conclusion; Appendix I - Coincidences between Shakespeare and Whitney; Appendix II - Subjects, Mottoes, and Sources of the Emblem Imprese; Appendix III - References to Passages from Shakespeare, and to the corresponding Devices of the Emblems treated; General Index.
£219.99
Seal Press (CA) Juliet: The Life and Afterlives of Shakespeare's
Book Synopsis
£22.50
Basic Books The Hollow Crown: Shakespeare on How Leaders
Book SynopsisWilliam Shakespeare understood power: what it is, how it works, how it is gained, and how it is lost. In The Hollow Crown, Eliot A. Cohen reveals how the battling princes of Henry IV and scheming senators of Julius Caesar can teach us to better understand power and politics today. The White House, after all, is a court-with intrigue and conflict rivalling those on the Globe's stage-as is an army, a business, or a university. And each court is full of driven characters, in all their ambition, cruelty, and humanity. Henry V's inspiring speeches reframe John F. Kennedy's appeal, Richard III's wantonness illuminates Vladimir Putin's brutality, and The Tempest's grace offers a window into the presidency of George Washington. An original and incisive perspective, The Hollow Crown shows how Shakespeare's works transform our understanding of the leaders who, for good or ill, make and rule our world.
£21.25
Exile Editions Trojan Women
Book SynopsisWith a stunning command of the Greek language and a mastery of poetic nuance, this translation of Euripides' play breathes unparalleled life into an ancient masterpiece. Using vocabulary that gives the sense that the play was written with an appreciation of and application to the 20th and 21st centuries, this adaptation goes beyond the timeless plot of the consequences of war and the fate of both the victors and the losers and focuses on the modern-day issues of feminism and women's rights. Also included in this volume are two long poems—"Helen" and "Orestes"—by contemporary Greek poet Yannis Ritsos, who was nominated for the Nobel Prize.Trade Review“It’s significant that MacEwen would choose to translate The Trojan Women and Helen texts, for after all, they are filled with the plaint of women, their powerlessness, their victimization, and a sense of isolation . . . The vocabulary of these translations is so much MacEwen’s own that they seem almost to have been written by her. These translations are deeply felt.” —Margaret Atwood, author, The Penelopiad
£16.96
Broadview Press Ltd A Bold Stroke for a Wife
Book SynopsisThough critics and literary historians have always had to admit that Susanna Centlivre's comedies were extremely popular, they have tended to devote themselves to a search for evidence in them of supposed deficiencies of 'the female pen,' and to pay as much attention to the playwright's marriages and amorous liasons than to the plays themselves. Only in recent years has Centlivre come to be recognized quite straightforwardly as on of the most brilliant playwrights of her time.A Bold Stroke for a Wife is perhaps the finest example of Centlivre's masterful plotting of comic intrigue. The soldier Fainwell and Anne Lovely are in love, but their path to the altar is blocked by her guardians, each of whom has a different view of what sort of husband would make the right match. Fainwell resorts to disguises of social types. The play thus provides a wide range of opportunity for Centlivre to satirize Tory respectability, religious propriety and capitalist speculative greed—and to give voice to tolerance: 'tis liberty of choice that sweetens life.' Yet in the end it is Centlivre's comic muse that gives enduring life to the play as one of the most entertaining of eighteenth-century comedies.Trade ReviewThis edition is expertly contextualized—biographically, socially, politically, and historically—so that Centlivre's play is positioned as an important product of early eighteenth-century theatre and culture. Copeland's introduction is crisp, direct, and authoritative; the notes are thorough, thoughtful, and unobtrusive; and the biographical and critical appendices are welcome." - Susan Carlson, Iowa State UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroductionLife, Career, and ReputationA Bold Stroke For A WifeNotesBibliographyA Note on the TextA Bold Stroke For A WifeDedicatonPrologueDramatis PersonaeAct IAct IIAct IIIAct IVAct VEpilogueTextual NotesAppendix: Selected Documents Biography Criticism Stockjobbing
£19.90
Broadview Press Ltd The Clandestine Marriage
Book SynopsisDavid Garrick, the leading actor of his time, was also one of its most accomplished dramatists, and The Clandestine Marriage is perhaps his finest play. Its story centres on the household of a wealthy merchant, Mr. Sterling, whose main concern is that his two daughters marry men of wealth. Fanny has defied her apprentice; her sister Betsey is engaged to be married to Sir John Melvil. But Melvil and his friend Lord Ogleby both fall in love with Fanny. It is up to Lovewell to persuade both men that marriage to Fanny is out of the question—without revealing to them that he has already married her.The action of the play and also its setting (a landscape garden designed after the fashion of the time to provide artificial wildness and ‘commanding’ views) give ample scope for Garrick and Coleman to satirize the mercantile mind—yet the play’s comic spirit holds appeal to those on all points of the political compass. First produced in 1766, The Clandestine Marriage was revived to great acclaim in 1995 in a London production starring Nigel Hawthorne.Full-length plays of the late eighteenth century were usually performed together with short plays (or ‘afterpieces’) to form a full evening of entertainment. In accordance with that tradition this edition is completed by two of the most interesting examples of the genre: Charles Burney’s The Cunning-Man (which in fact was several times performed alongside The Clandestine Marriage during the 1766-67 season) and The Rehearsal; or Bayes in Petticoats by Catherine Clive (who played Mrs. Heidelberg in the original production of The Clandestine Marriage).Trade Review“This imaginative collection takes us to the London theatre c. 1766 for an ‘evening’s entertainment’ of sparkling comedies (a mainpiece and two afterpieces), with Chevalier as our knowledgeable and genial guide.” — Peter Sabor, McGill UniversityTable of ContentsPREFACEINTRODUCTIONAn Evening’s EntertainmentStage Tradition and the PastoralSources and Stage HistoriesBibliographyTHE CLANDESTINE MARRIAGEAdvertisementPrologueDramatis PersonaeAct IAct IIAct IIIAct IVAct VEpilogueTHE CUNNING-MANAdvertisementDramatis PersonaeAct IAct IITHE REHEARSAL, OR BAYES IN PETTICOATSAdvertisementPersonsAct IAct IITEXTUAL NOTESThe Clandestine MarriageThe Cunning-ManThe Rehearsl, of Bayes in PetticoatsAPPENDIX A: CONTEMPORARY REVIEWS The Clandestine Marriage The Cunning-Man APPENDIX B: NOTES ON THE ACTORS
£24.26
Broadview Press Ltd Plays on the Passions
Book SynopsisBaillie’s eminently readable dramas stand at the crossroads of the Scottish Enlightenment and early Romanticism, and compellingly engage with questions of women’s rights. Her exploration of the passions, first published in 1798, is here reissued with a wealth of contextual materials including "The Introductory Discourse," Baillie’s own brand of feminist literary criticism. The three plays included here are "Count Basil: A Tragedy," and "The Tryal: A Comedy," which show love from opposing perspectives; and "De Monfort: A Tragedy," which explores the drama of hate. Among other appendices, the Broadview edition includes materials on the contemporary philosophical understanding of the passions, and contemporary reviews.Baillie’s work is enjoying a revival of interest. She lived a long life, (1762-1851), and had a wide circle of literary friends including Maria Edgeworth and Sir Walter Scott (who termed her a "female Shakespeare"). Scottish born, she moved to England in her twenties where she then resided. Her Plays on the Passions, alternatively known as A Series of Plays in which it is Attempted to Delineate the Stronger Passions of the Mind—Each Passion being the Subject of a Tragedy and Comedy was produced in three volumes between 1798 and 1812. The first volume created quite a stir amongst the literary circles of London and Edinburgh when introduced anonymously. The speculation into the authorship concluded two years later when Baillie came forward as the writer of the collection, thereby causing a subsequent sensation since no one had considered the shy spinster a candidate in the mystery.Trade Review“At a time when serious scholars are reevaluating the merit and impact of Joanna Baillie’s work, we finally have an annotated edition of her first volume of A Series of Plays. Sound research is impossible without authoritative primary texts, and Peter Duthie provides judicious editing, pertinent annotations and important philosophical explanations to make this Baillie edition useful for researchers and general readers alike.” — Judith Bailey Slagle, editor of The Collected Letters of Joanna Baillie“Peter Duthie has given teachers of romanticism and theater a gift; this elegant, accessible, and carefully contextualized edition of Joanna Baillie’s earliest plays is an invaluable resource for demonstrating the centrality of Baillie’s dramas to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century debates about women and performance, morality and the mind.” — Catherine Burroughs, Wells CollegeTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroductionJoanna Baillie: A Brief ChronologyA Note on the Text Introductory DiscourseCount Basil: A TragedyThe Tryal: A ComedyDe Monfort: A Tragedy Appendix A: The Moral Writers John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690) David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40) Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) Dugald Stewart, Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind (1792) Appendix B: Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) [On soldiers, professions, and masculine corruption] [On the tyranny of the sexes] Appendix C: Prologue and Epilogue to the Tragedy of De Montfort from the Larpent VersionAppendix D: William Wordsworth “Preface” to Lyrical Ballads (1800) From Lyrical Ballads Vol. 2 (1800) Appendix E: Contemporary Reviews Literary Leisure I (Jan. 1800) Edinburgh Review 4 (July 1803) Imperial Review I (March 1804) Dramatic Censor (April-May 1800) Works Cited/Recommended Reading
£26.55
Broadview Press Ltd Shakespeare's Heroines
Book SynopsisFirst published in 1832, Shakespeare’s Heroines is a unique hybrid of Shakespeare criticism, women’s rights activism, and conduct literature. Jameson’s collection of readings of female characters includes praise for unexpected role models as varied as Portia, Cleopatra, and Lady Macbeth; her interpretations of these and other characters portray intellect, passion, political ambition, and eroticism as acceptable aspects of women’s behaviour. This inventive work of literary criticism addresses the problems of women’s education and participation in public life while also providing insightful, original, and entertaining readings of Shakespeare’s women.This Broadview Edition includes a critical introduction that places Shakespeare’s Heroines in the context of Jameson’s literary career and political life. Appendices include personal correspondence and other literary and political writings by Jameson, examples of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Shakespeare criticism, and selections from Victorian conduct books.Trade Review“This edition of Anna Jameson’s Shakespeare’s Heroines fills an important gap in available resources of this significant writer in an intelligent, well-informed manner. Adept as a researcher, a literary critic, and a writer, Professor Larsen Hoeckley brings to the task at hand an admirable ability to make connections where others before have failed to see them. Broadview Press deserves commendation for putting an important literary ‘foremother’ back in the public eye with the publication of Shakespeare’s Heroines, now properly situated in its historical and critical context.” ― Carol Hanbery MacKay, University of Texas at AustinTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroductionAnna Murphy Jameson: A Brief ChronologyA Note on the TextShakespeare’s HeroinesAppendix A: Jameson’s Writing on Women, Work, and Acting From Sisters of Charity, Catholic and Protestant, Abroad and at Home (1855) From The Communion of Labour (1856) “Mrs. Siddons” in Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad (1834) Appendix B: Jameson’s Correspondence Bessie Rayner Parkes, 1856-59 Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1856 Frances Anne Kemble, 1831-32 Ottilie von Goethe, 1836 Appendix C: Contemporary Reviews of Characteristics of Women The Monthly Review (1832) The Literary Gazette (1832) Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (1833) Appendix D: Conduct Books From Sarah Stickney Ellis, The Women of England:Their Social Duties and Domestic Habits (1939) From John Ruskin, “Of Queen’s Gardens” in Sesame and Lilies (1865) Appendix E: Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Shakespeare Criticism From William Richardson, “On Shakespeare’s Imitation of Female Characters” in Essays on Shakespeare’s Dramatic Character of Sir John Falstaff and on his Imitation of Female Characters (1789) From William Hazlitt, Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays (1817) From Frances Anne Kemble, “Notes on Macbeth No. II.” in Notes upon Some of Shakespeare’s Plays (1882) Select Bibliography
£27.86
Broadview Press Ltd Some Assembly Required
Book SynopsisSome Assembly Required, Eugene Stickland's lighthearted but deeply moving portrayal of a dysfunctional family at Christmas, was first produced in 1994 at Alberta Theatre Projects; it has enjoyed dozens of productions across North America since then. In 1995, Some Assembly Required was a finalist for the Governor General's Award in Drama. This re-issue incorporates a number of small revisions, and includes a new introduction by the author.Trade Review“An outstanding comedy.” — The Globe and Mail“As entertaining a look at the North American holiday ritual as we are likely to find.” — The Calgary Herald
£18.86
Broadview Press Ltd Edward II
Book SynopsisDepicting with shocking openness the sexual and political violence of its central characters' fates, Edward the Second broke new dramatic ground in English theatre. The play charts the tragic rise and fall of the medieval English monarch Edward the Second, his favourite Piers Gaveston, and their ambitious opponents Queen Isabella and Mortimer Jr., and is an important cultural, as well as dramatic, document of the early modern period.This modernized and fully annotated Broadview Edition is prefaced by a critical but student-oriented introduction and followed by ample appendix material, including extended selections from Marlowe's historical sources, texts bearing on the play's complex sexual and political dynamics, and excerpts from contemporary poet Michael Drayton's epic rendition of Edward the Second's reign.Trade Review“This is a first-rate edition of an increasingly important play. Mathew Martin’s editing of the quarto text of Edward the Second is detailed and thoughtful, with copious, insightful annotations, and his critical introduction lucidly explores the play’s theatrical contexts, historiographical concerns, and thematic imperatives. The extensive appendices that conclude the volume are invaluable for understanding the larger historical, political, and sexual contexts of the work. All in all, this is an edition that will greatly benefit both the student reader and the experienced scholar.” — Ian Munro, University of California, Irvine“Mathew Martin’s new edition of Edward the Second will serve well the needs of students. The introduction contains a succinct and helpful summary of the pertinent aspects of Marlowe’s life and of the practical concerns of the Elizabethan stage, details the reign of the historical Edward II, and considers early modern and postmodern evaluations of “sodomitical” relationships. Appendices offer important cultural contexts, including passages from Marlowe’s historical sources in Holinshed and Stow, Michael Drayton’s very different poetic account of Edward’s reign, a selection of early modern versions of the tradition of amity (or friendship between men), and Renaissance legal and moral descriptions of sodomy.” — Ian McAdam, University of LethbridgeTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroductionChristopher Marlowe: A Brief Chronology of His Life and TimesA Note on the TextEdward the SecondAppendix A: Marlowe’s Historical Sources From Raphael Holinshed, The Third Volume of Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1587) From John Stow, The Annals of England (1592) Appendix B: From Michael Drayton, Mortimeriados (1596)Appendix C: The Diana-Actæon Myth From Arthur Golding, The XV Books of P. Ovidius Naso (1567) Sonnet V of Samuel Daniel’s Sonnet Sequence Delia (1592) Appendix D: On Friendship Thomas Elyot, “The True Description of Amity or Friendship” (1580) From Francis Bacon, “Of Friendship” (1625) From Richard Barnfield, “The Tears of an Affectionate Shepherd Sick for Love or The Complaint of Daphnis for the Love of Ganymede” (1594) Appendix E: Sodomy “An Act for the Punishment of the Vice of Buggerie” (1587) Edward Coke, “Of Buggery, or Sodomy” (1644) From Philip Stubbes, The Anatomy of Abuses (1583) From Thomas Beard, The Theatre of God’s Judgements (1597) Appendix F: Kings and Tyrants From An Homily against Disobedience and Wilful Rebellion (1570) From Hugh Languet, Vindiciae contra Tyrannos: A Defence of Liberty against Tyrants (1648) From James I of England and VI of Scotland, The True Law of Free Monarchies (1603) Works Cited and Further Reading
£19.76
Broadview Press Ltd Twelfth Night
Book SynopsisThis volume includes the text of Twelfth Night as prepared and annotated by David Swain for The Broadview Anthology of British Literature, and is accompanied by the excellent introduction and supplementary materials from the anthology. The diverse and extensive appendices acquaint readers with Shakespeare’s sources and contextualize the play within Elizabethan society. The appendices include an excerpt from Barnabe Riche’s “Of Apollonius and Silla,” Shakespeare’s primary source of inspiration for the play; selections from Galen, Plato, and others illustrating Elizabethan attitudes toward gender and sexuality; excerptions illuminating contemporary moral discomfort with the theatre, such as Philip Stubbes’s “Of Stage-plays and Interludes, with their wickedness”; and pieces on music and duelling that illustrate cultural conventions important to the interpretation of Twelfth Night.This is one of several Broadview Anthology of British Literature Editions being released this year; those wishing to teach the text will have the option of including the convenient stand-alone book as part of a specially-priced shrink-wrapped package together with a volume of the anthology.Trade Review“Broadview’s recent Anthology of British Literature is an exciting achievement. Broadview has accomplished what no other anthology to date has been able to do.... Its introductory essays and useful appendices successfully reflect current scholarship while remaining student-centered.... With an impressive selection of literary works, an equally impressive collection of visual images, and an exemplary emphasis on print culture and history of the language, The Broadview Anthology not only rivals the Norton and the Longman, it sets a new standard by which all other anthologies of British literature will now have to be measured.” — Graham Hammill, University of Notre Dame on The Broadview Anthology of British Literature“The simple fact is that a major work of student-centered scholarship has arrived in the field of English studies, and The Broadview Anthology of British Literature is no mere pretender to the throne long held by the Norton: it is the new standard.” — Richard Nordquist, Armstrong Atlantic State University on The Broadview Anthology of British LiteratureTable of ContentsAcknowledgments IntroductionWilliam Shakespeare 1564–1616 Twelfth Night, or What You Will Twelfth Night, or What You Will In Context The Shakespearean Theater The Swan TheatreTitus Andronicus in PerformanceThe Plot of an Elizabethan PlayEarly Editions of Shakespeare’s Plays Twelfth Night Performance and Sources from John Manningham, Diary (2 February 1602)from Barnabe Riche, “Apollonius and Silla” Gender and Sexuality from Plato, The Symposium from Galen, De Usu Partium (On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body)from Helkiah Crooke, Microcosmographia (London, 1615) from William Shakespeare, Sonnets: Sonnet 20 from Michel de Montaigne, “Of Friendship” Theater and Society from Philip Stubbes, “Of Stage-Plays and Interludes, with Their Wickedness” from William Rankins, A Mirror of Monsters (London, 1587) from William Gager, Letter to Dr. John Rainolds (written 1592)from King James I, The King’s Majesty’s Declaration to His Subjects Concerning Lawful Sports to Be Used (London, 1618, 1633) Music and the Passions from Thomas Wright, The Passions of the Mind in General (London, 1601) from Sir Thomas Wyatt, “Ah Robin,” manuscript (c. 1510–20) from William Shakespeare, King Lear 3.2.73–77 Dueling from Vincentio Saviolo, Vincentio Saviolo His Practice. The First Book (London, 1595)from Vincentio Saviolo, Of Honour and Honourable Quarrels. The Second Book (London, 1595)
£16.16
Broadview Press Ltd As You Like It (1598-99)
Book SynopsisBoth a witty satire of literary cliché and a tender meditation on the varieties of love, As You Like It continues to be one of Shakespeare’s most beloved and widely performed comedies. In the introduction to this new edition, David Bevington traces the complex relationships between the characters in the play, and explores the history of its criticism from Samuel Johnson to the twenty-first century.As part of the newly launched Broadview Press / Internet Shakespeare Editions series, this edition features a variety of interleaved materials—from facsimile pages, diagrams, and musical scores to illustrations and extended discussions of myth and folklore—that provide a context for the social and cultural allusions in the play. Appendices offer excerpts from Shakespeare’s key sources and influences, including Thomas Lodge’s Rosalind and Ben Jonson’s Every Man in His Humor.A collaboration between Broadview Press and the Internet Shakespeare Editions project at the University of Victoria, the editions developed for this series have been comprehensively annotated and draw on the authoritative texts newly edited for the ISE. This innovative series allows readers to access extensive and reliable online resources linked to the print edition.Trade Review“With its wealth of contextual material, and linked to the extensive resources online, this edition of one of Shakespeare’s most engaging plays will be particularly welcome in the undergraduate classroom. Editor David Bevington draws on a long and distinguished career to situate the play in its literary, intellectual, and historical contexts, furnishing a well-stocked Introduction that can be navigated readily by students new to the field. A feature that makes this edition especially attractive as a teaching text is the inclusion of nearly two dozen “interleavings” to supplement the traditional footnotes—extended, and often illustrated, glosses on key passages and references that might prove obscure for readers today.” — Judith Owens, University of ManitobaTable of ContentsACKNOWLEDGEMENTSINTRODUCTIONSHAKESPEARE’S LIFESHAKESPEARE’S THEATERWILLIAM SHAKESPEARE: A BRIEF CHRONOLOGYA NOTE ON THE TEXTABBREVIATIONSAS YOU LIKE ITAPPENDIX A: SOURCES AND INFLUENCES From Thomas Lodge, Rosalind (1590) From “The Tale of Gamelyn” (14th Century) From “Robin Hood and the Beggar” From John Lyly, Galatea (1592) From Ben Jonson, Every Man in His Humor (1598) From Joseph Hall, Satires (1598) APPENDIX B: CLASSICAL MYTHS IN AS YOU LIKE ITBIBLIOGRAPHY
£16.16
Broadview Press Ltd The Jew of Malta
Book SynopsisFirst performed by Shakespeare’s rivals in the 1590s, Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta was a trend-setting, innovative play whose black comedy and final tragic irony illuminate the darker regions of the Elizabethan cultural imagination. Although Jews were banished from England in 1291, the Jew in the form of Barabas, the play’s protagonist, returns on the stage to embody and to challenge the dramatic and cultural anti-Semitic stereotypes out of which he is constructed. The result is a theatrically sophisticated but deeply unsettling play whose rich cultural significance extends beyond the early modern period to the present day.The introduction and historical documents in this edition provide a rich context for the world of the play’s composition and production, including materials on Jewishness and anti-Semitism, the political struggles over Malta, and Christopher Marlowe’s personal and political reputation.Trade Review“The great strength of Mathew Martin’s edition is the ease of access it gives scholars and students to one of Marlowe’s strangest and most disturbing plays. He achieves this not simply by exemplary annotations, but by framing Marlowe’s text within an introduction and richly informative appendices that place the play securely in its contemporary social, cultural, and political contexts, enabling readers to negotiate complexities of tone and racial attitudes with subtle insight. The effect is precisely to highlight the daring originality of Marlowe’s dramatic artistry and his exacting control of both the arts of performance and his audience’s responses.” — Richard Allen Cave, Emeritus Professor of Drama and Theatre Arts, Royal Holloway, University of London“The Jew of Malta is one of early modern England’s most controversial plays on its most controversial topic—the collision of world religions. Martin’s terrific new edition brilliantly captures the gist of its cut-and-thrust. The introduction offers readers a sophisticated entrée into Anglo-Ottoman relations, European anti-Semitism, theatre history, and Machiavellianism. The edition is elegantly edited, with many resources for readers who want to understand one of Marlowe’s greatest plays in its historical milieu.” — Alan Shepard, President of Concordia UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroductionChristopher Marlowe: A Brief Chronology of His Life and TimesA Note on the TextThe Jew of MaltaAppendix A: Jewishness in Marlowe’s England From John Foxe, Acts and Monuments (1610) [The destruction of the Jews in 73 CE] [Hugh of Lincoln and other stories] From Raphael Holinshed, The Third Volume of Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1587) [London Jews executed for counterfeiting and debasing coins in 1278] [The expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290] From Thomas Nashe, The Unfortunate Traveller (1594) From Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Prioress’s Tale,” The Canterbury Tales (1602) From “An homily for Good Friday, concerning the death and passion of our Saviour Jesus Christ,” in The Second Tome of Homilies (1563) From Robert Wilson, The Three Ladies of London (1584) [Mercadorus is confronted by Gerontus, to whom he owes money] [Arrested, Mercadorus is brought before the Judge of Turkey] From Sir Thomas Browne, “Of the Jews,” Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646) Appendix B: Rhodes, Malta, and European-OttomanRelations From Nicholas Nicholay, The Navigations, peregrinations and voyages, made into Turkey by Nicholas Nicholay (1585) From Richard Knolles, The General History of the Turks (1603) [Preparation for the siege of Malta begins] [The Turks take Saint Elmo] [The Turkish forces leave Malta] From A Form to be used in Common prayer … to excite and stir all godly people to pray unto God for the preservation of those Christians and their Countries that are now invaded by the Turk in Hungary or elsewhere (1566) From Richard Hakluyt, The Principle Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries of the English Nation (1589) [“The letters sent from the Imperial Musulmanlike highness of Sultan Murad Khan to the sacred regal Majesty of Elizabeth Queen of England”] [“The answer of her Majesty to the aforesaid letters of the Great Turk”] Appendix C: Machiavellianism From Innocent Gentillet, A Discourse Upon the Means of Well Governing and Maintaining in Good Peace aKingdom, or Other Principality … Against Nicholas Machiavel the Florentine (1602) [From “A Preface to the first Part”] [From Gentillet’s refutation of Machiavelli’s firstmaxim of religion] [From Gentillet’s refutation of Machiavelli’s twentyfirstmaxim of policy] [The maxims] From Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince (1640) [Edward Dacres’s “Epistle to the Reader”] [Chapter XV, “Of those things in respect whereof men, and especially princes, are praised or dispraised”] [From Chapter XVIII, “In what manner princes ought to keep their words”] [Chapter XXV, “How great power Fortune hath in human affairs, and what means there is to resist it”] Appendix D: Marlowe’s Reputation From Robert Greene, Perimedes the Blacksmith (1588) and A Groatsworth of Wit (1592) [From Perimedes the Blacksmith] [From A Groatsworth of Wit] Thomas Kyd’s letters to Sir John Puckering about Marlowe Richard Baines, “A note containing the opinion of Christopher Marlowe concerning his damnable Judgment of religion and scorn of God’s word” From Thomas Beard, The Theatre of God’s Judgements (1597) Works Cited and Further Reading
£17.95
Broadview Press Ltd Pizarro
Book SynopsisRichard Brinsley Sheridan’s last play, an adaptation of August Von Kotzebue’s Die Spanier set in Peru and first performed in 1799, was one of the most popular of the entire century. Set during the Spanish Conquest of Peru, Pizarro dramatized English fears of invasion by Revolutionary France, but it is also surprisingly and critically engaged with Britain’s colonial exploits abroad. Pizarro is a play of firsts: the first use of music alongside action, the first collapsing set, the first production to inspire such celebratory ephemera as cartoons, portraits, postcards, even porcelain collector plates. Pizarro marks the end of eighteenth-century drama and the birth of a new theatrical culture.This edition features a comprehensive introduction and extensive appendices documenting the play’s first successful performances and global influence. It will appeal to students and scholars of Romantic literature, theatre history, post-colonialism, and Indigenous studies.Trade Review“This exemplary edition of Sheridan’s spectacular melodrama demonstrates how the play made history in multiple ways—theatrically, technically, nationally, and imperially. The editors expertly bring together source materials and stage history to revivify the original context of the play, its production, and its reception.” — Joseph Roach, Sterling Professor of Theater, Yale University“The new Broadview edition of Pizarro has thus the great merit of helping a modern-day readership to rediscover this classic hit of Romantic drama through an innovative commentary and appendices, including a wide selection of historical sources on the invasion of Peru and dramatical testimonies of the invasion of the Americas by the Spanish, along with contemporary reviews and criticism resulting from the play’s representation. This edition demonstrates once again that English Romantic drama, even when adapted from already existing texts, possessed an innovative momentum that can be recognized at different levels: technical, theatrical, and, last but not least, political.” — Carlotta Farese, European Romantic ReviewTable of ContentsList of IllustrationsAcknowledgementsIntroductionRichard Brinsley Sheridan and Pizarro: A Brief ChronologyA Note on the TextPizarro: A Tragedy in Five ActsAppendix A: Deleted “Diego” SceneFrom Sheridan’s Original Manuscript Draft Adapted fromGerman TranslationAppendix B: Historical Sources on the Spanish Conquest ofPeru From Bartolomeo de Las Casas, Tears of the Indians (1656) From Abbé Guillaume Thomas François Raynal, A Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies (1770) From Jean-François Marmontel, The Incas: or, the Destruction of the Empire of Peru (1777) From William Robertson, The History of America (1777) Appendix C: The Spanish Invasion of Peru in British Theatre From William Davenant, The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru (1658) From John Thelwall, The Incas, or The Peruvian Virgin (1792) From Thomas Morton, Columbus, or, A World Discovered, an historical play (1792) Appendix D: Reviews of the First Production of Pizarro From “Theatre,” Morning Chronicle (25 May 1799) From “PIZARRO,” Morning Post and Gazetteer (25 May 1799) From “Theatre—Drury Lane,” General Evening Post (25 May 1799) From “Theatre,” Evening Mail (27 May 1799) From Account of Royal Command Performance, The Star (6 June 1799) From “The Theatre,” True Briton (6 June 1799) Appendix E: Critiques of Pizarro From [William Gifford], “Remarks on Kotzebue’s Pizarro,” The Anti-Jacobin Review (1799) From A Critique of the Tragedy of Pizarro (1799) From Samuel Bardsley, Critical Remarks on Pizarro (1800) From John Britton, Sheridan and Kotzebue … (1799) From “Mr. Sheridan,” Public Characters of 1799–1800 (1799) From [Frederic Reynolds], “Some Account of a Dreadful Disease Called the Kotzebue-Mania,” The Oracle Appendix F: Sheridan’s Speeches, Rolla’s Address, and the Address to the People From “Proceedings against Warren Hastings” (1788) From “Union of Ireland with Great Britain” (23 January 1799) “Mr. Sheridan’s Pizarro,” The Monthly Mirror (January 1800) Sheridan’s Address to the People (1803) From William Cobbett, “Letter IV,” Political Proteus (1804) Works Cited and Select Bibliography
£26.96
Broadview Press Ltd Lady Audley's Secret: A Drama in Two Acts (1863)
Book SynopsisMary Elizabeth Braddon’s shocking and suspenseful novel Lady Audley’s Secret was one of the most popular examples of the “sensation fiction” craze of the 1860s. Within a year of the novel appearing in book form, no less than three theatrical adaptations appeared on the London stage. Braddon took strong issue with two of these, but she approved of the adaptation by Robert Walters (writing under the pseudonym “George Roberts”); this edition presents that version, which enjoyed a two season run at the Royal St. James Theatre. Entertaining in itself, the play also provides a fascinating example of how the suspense and the powerful characterizations of sensation fiction were heightened still further for the stage.Together with the annotated text of the play itself, this edition includes an introduction addressing the life and work of Mary Elizabeth Braddon and placing Lady Audley’s Secret: A Drama in Two Acts in the context of the sensation fiction phenomenon. Appendices include a substantial selection of reviews of Lady Audley’s Secret—of the novel as well as of its dramatic adaptations—as well as a selection from the novel for comparison with the play.Trade Review“This edition of George Roberts’s version of Lady Audley’s Secret makes available for the first time the version performed at the St. James’s Theatre. It comes with a useful introduction, comparative analysis of the play and the novel, and a cross-section of reviews, both of the novel and of this particular dramatization. The annotations are generally very helpful. … [and the edition includes] some invaluable background resources.” — Jim Davis, University of WarwickTable of ContentsIntroductionSensation NovelsLady Audley’s Secret on the StageLady Audley’s Secret: A Drama in Two ActsIn Context Differences between Braddon’s Novel and Roberts’s Play from Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Lady Audley’s Secret (1861–62) Reviews of Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret “Lady Audley’s Secret,” The Times (18 November 1862) Review of Lady Audley’s Secret, The Spectator 1791 (1862) Review of Lady Audley’s Secret, The Critic 25.631 (December 1862) Review of Lady Audley’s Secret, The Rose, the Shamrock and the Thistle 2 (November 1862) from “Our Female Sensation Novelists,” Christian Remembrancer 46 (1863) from H.L. Mansel, “Sensation Novels,” Quarterly Review 113 (April 1863) Reviews of George Roberts’s Lady Audley’s Secret “‘Lady Audley’ on the Stage,” The London Review 6.140 (7 March 1863) “St. James’s Theatre,” The Rose, the Shamrock and the Thistle 2 (April 1863) from “The Theatres,” Musical World 41.11 (14 March 1863)
£17.06
Broadview Press Ltd The Tragedy of Tragedies (1731)
Book SynopsisBest known today for the novels Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones, Henry Fielding was just as renowned in his own time as a prolific and highly successful dramatist. Among his most popular plays was The Tragedy of Tragedies: Or, The Life and Death of Tom Thumb, one of the most extraordinary parodies in English theater. The print version of the play incorporates, in an elaborate structure of annotations, a remarkable satire of heroic drama and of the pretensions and excesses of “false scholarship.”This edition includes the text of the play itself and the text of the extraordinary notes (by Fielding’s pseudonym “H. Scriblerus Secundus”), appearing in facing page layout; extensive explanatory notes for the modern reader appear at the bottom of the page. Also included are a substantial introduction and a wide range of background materials that set the work in the context of its time. These contextual materials include contemporary reviews, excerpts from the plays that Fielding’s parody most frequently targeted, and selections from works that provided inspiration for The Tragedy of Tragedies—from contemporary versions of the “Tom Thumb” folktale to satirical writing by authors such as Alexander Pope, John Gay, and George Villiers.Trade Review“Featuring an excellent introduction, extensive notes and a generous sampling of contextual materials, this splendid new classroom edition of Henry Fielding’s The Tragedy of Tragedies makes one of the most popular plays of the eighteenth century come alive for today’s students. It will be useful to teachers of eighteenth-century British literature as well as of drama or theatre surveys.” — Albert J. Rivero, Marquette University“Fielding’s Tragedy of Tragedies provides a master comedian’s compact compendium of the heterogeneous sources of laughter and comic insight: farcical action and burlesque situations; literary parody; satire of bombast and pedantry; physical and verbal incongruities (a miniature hero and giant queen, diction that regularly plummets from lofty to low); mind-bending philosophical puzzles (a ghost threatened with death by sword); temporal inversions (footnotes asserting that lines from earlier plays have been cribbed from this one); reductions of poetic form (“Oh, Huncamunca, Huncamunca, oh”); and the bathos of compression and acceleration (seven stabbing deaths within ten lines at the play’s close).The Broadview edition makes the play’s full array of comic techniques readily accessible to any reader: effectively edited and cleverly formatted as a facing-page edition, with Fielding’s mock-scholarly footnotes filling right-hand pages, the edition would serve equally well as the basis for uproariously funny stage productions and for study as a revealing print artifact from the Augustan Age. I recommend this edition as required reading for courses on Restoration and eighteenth-century drama, The Age of Swift and Pope, theater history, eighteenth-century literature, book history, and literary theory—and as pleasure reading for anyone interested in drama, the novel, or a good laugh. ” — Jill Campbell, Yale UniversityTable of ContentsIntroductionThe Tragedy of Tragedies: or, The Life and Death of Tom Thumb theGreatA Note on the TextThe Tragedy of Tragedies: or, The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the GreatIn Context Sources and Satiric Models from The Famous History of Tom Thumb (1750)from George Villiers, Second Duke of Buckingham, The Rehearsal (1672)from William Wagstaffe, A Comment Upon the History of Tom Thumb (1711)from John Gay, The What D’Ye Call It: A Tragi-Comi-Pastoral Farce (1715)from Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels (1726)from Alexander Pope, Peri Bathous: or, The Art of Sinking in Poetry (1728)from Alexander Pope, The Dunciad Variorum (1729)from James Ralph, The Touch-Stone: or, Historical, Critical, Political, Philosophical, and Theological Essays on the Reigning Diversions of the Town (1728)from Henry Fielding, Tom Thumb. A Tragedy.… Written by Scriblerus Secundus (1730) “Acting Play” to “Reading Play”: Performance, Print, Parody from John Dryden, The Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards and “Of Heroic Plays: An Essay” (1672)from John Dryden, All for Love: or, The World Well Lost (1678)from Thesaurus Dramaticus. Containing all the Celebrated Passages, Soliloquies, Similes, Descriptions, and Other Poetical Beauties in the Body of English Plays, Ancient and Modern, Digested Under Proper Topics, 2 vols. (1724)from James Thomson, The Tragedy of Sophonisba (1730) Reception from Advertisements in Contemporary Periodicals (1731) from London Evening Post (18–20 March 1731)from Daily Post (19 March 1731)from Daily Post (22 March 1731)from Daily Post (28 April 1731) from The Universal Spectator (10 April 1731)from The Grub-Street Journal (18 November 1731)from William Hatchett and Eliza Haywood, The Opera of Operas; or,Tom Thumb the Great. Altered from The Life and Death of TomThumb the Great. And Set to Musick after the Italian Manner(1733)from Observations on the Present Taste for Poetry (1739)from Giles Jacob, The Mirrour: or, Satyrical, Panegyrical, Serious, andHumorous on the Present Times (1733)from Samuel Foote, Taste. A Comedy of Two Acts (1752)from David Erskine Baker, Biographia Dramatica: or, A Companion tothe Playhouse (1764)from William Hazlitt, “Of the Comic Writers of the Last Century”(1819)
£18.00
Broadview Press Ltd Tamburlaine the Great: Parts One and Two
Book SynopsisTamburlaine the Great, Part One and Part Two are the first plays that Christopher Marlowe wrote for London’s then new freestanding, open-air public playhouses. They trace the progress of Tamburlaine, a Central Asian leader, as he “scourge[s] kingdoms with his conquering sword” and rises to imperial power. The plays were a powerful beginning to Marlowe’s brief career as a public theatre dramatist: the brutally masculine and martial main character immediately captured audiences, and the plays were widely imitated and parodied. Even four hundred years later, Marlowe’s Tamburlaine remains a shocking and seductive figure.The introduction and historical appendices to this new Broadview Edition provide many avenues for readers to understand these plays, presenting other portrayals of Islam from the period, related lives of Tamburlaine from other writers, and material on Marlowe’s scandalous reputation.Trade Review“Mathew R. Martin’s edition of Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great, Part One and Part Two has everything one needs to ensure these powerful plays come alive in the undergraduate classroom: a clear and wonderfully annotated text, a lively yet erudite introduction, and a treasure trove of contextual materials. While other editions routinely refer students to key historical documents such as the Richard Baines letter, this edition offers a wealth of materials that can open the door to a sophisticated understanding of Marlowe’s appeal. In addition to sources attesting to Marlowe’s outsized reputation even in his day, the edition includes materials that will help students grasp the complexity of these dramas, such as early accounts of the historical Temur and a well-chosen archive of documents revealing early modern English views of Islam. Supplementing such historical documents is a brilliant collection of literary ‘intertexts’—excerpts from Jonson, Middleton, and others that will help students understand both Marlowe’s trailblazing aesthetic sensibility and the plays’ extraordinary afterlife. This is a first-rate edition and I very much look forward to using it in the classroom.” — Patricia Cahill, Emory University“Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine plays had a profound impact on the literary and dramatic culture of Elizabethan England. Mathew R. Martin’s new edition draws upon a wide range of recent scholarship, and the editor’s own extensive research, to recover the forms of that initial impact. Martin’s detailed introduction presents us with the awe-inspiring conqueror in all his bloody pomp and glorious contradictions: a Scythian warlord who came to embody a particularly English sense of the world. In this edition Martin boldly overturns editorial convention to make the third Octavo edition of 1597 his copytext, with striking and provocative results. The combination of an expansive introduction, rigorous textual scholarship and careful collation, and a thorough and varied collection of primary-source appendices makes this a valuable and engaging edition, worthy of Marlowe’s extraordinary creation.” — Matthew Dimmock, University of Sussex“Matthew R. Martin has prepared a solid undergraduate-level edition of Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great: Part One and Part Two for Broadview Press. In addition to a comprehensive introduction, Martin provides appendices that include a selection of documents concerning early modern perceptions of Islam and the East.” — Kevin Curran, Studies in English Literature 1500-1900Table of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction Christopher Marlowe: A Brief Chronology A Note on the Text Tamburlaine the Great, Parts One and Two Appendix A: Lives of Tamburlaine 1. From George Whetstone, The English Mirror (1586) 2. From John Foxe, Acts and Monuments (1610) 3. From Richard Knolles, The General History of the Turks (1603) 4. Jean Dubec-Crespin, The History of the Great Emperor Tamerlan (1597) Appendix B: Early Modern English Representations of Islam 1. From George Whetstone, The English Mirror (1586) 2. From Anonymous, Sir Bevis of Hampton (1585) 3. From Giles Fletcher, The Policy of the Turkish Empire (1597) Appendix C: Literary Intertexts 1. From Robert Greene, Perimedes the Blacksmith (1588) 2. Christopher Marlowe, ""The Passionate Shepherd to His Love,"" in England's Helicon (1600) 3. From Joseph Hall, Virgidemiarum (1597) 4. From Ben Jonson, Timber; or, Discoveries, in The Works of Benjamin Jonson (1641) 5. From Anonymous, The Troublesome Reign of John King of England (1591) 6. From Thomas Dekker, Old Fortunatus (1600) 7. From Thomas Middleton, The Triumphs of Integrity (1623) 8. From Thomas Nashe, Christ's Tears over Jerusalem (1613) 9. From Thomas Dekker, The Wonderful Year (1603) Appendix D: Marlowe's Reputation 1. From Robert Greene, A Groatsworth of Wit (1592) 2. Thomas Kyd's Two Letters concerning His Arrest and Interrogation Regarding the Dutch Church Libel and Marlowe's Atheism 3. Richard Baines, "A Note Containing the Opinion of Christopher Marlowe concerning His Damnable Judgment of Religion and Scorn of God's Word" 4. From Thomas Beard, The Theatre of God's Judgements (1597) Select Bibliography
£21.95
Broadview Press Ltd Githa Sowerby: Three Plays: Rutherford and Son, A
Book SynopsisGitha Sowerby's Rutherford and Son took the London theatre by storm in 1912. Following its triumphant run, the play toured to New York, was produced throughout England, and was translated and staged in multiple European locations. Yet Sowerby's initial theatrical success would not be repeated, despite her composition of additional plays performed over the following decade, and two more in the 1930s. With historical hindsight, we can see Sowerby's experience as comparable to that of many other women writers who struggled to achieve lasting recognition, especially when their work was perceived as critiquing the political, cultural, and economic forces restricting women's lives. With the acclaimed revival of Rutherford at the National Theatre in 1994, and the efforts by feminist scholars and theatre artists to rediscover the work of such forgotten women writers, Sowerby and her dramas have secured renewed interest. This Broadview edition will provide teachers, students, and artists with important historical contexts for Sowerby's dramas, and will demonstrate the ongoing cogency of these dynamic, insightful, and engaging plays.Trade Review“This collection is a revelation. It brings a new awareness of the full range of Sowerby’s playwriting, including her groundbreaking play Rutherford and Son and two others that few will have encountered. Through J. Ellen Gainor’s skillful editing and expertise, the book also shows what riches can emerge when theatre scholars join forces with theatre makers to recover ‘neglected’ plays and illuminate their continued relevance to our own times. Here is an outstanding example of the vital role of performance in the recovery of ‘lost’ play texts.” — Kirsten E. Shepherd-Barr, University of Oxford“This edition of Githa Sowerby’s plays is a fantastic opportunity for students, researchers, and the general reader to engage with the work of this important but underrated Edwardian playwright. With its inclusion of introductory and critical editorials for each of the plays and an extensive range of original review materials, this rich volume provides an exemplary model. Once again, Broadview has commissioned an excellent edition that both brings to life the work of a marginalized playwright and will stand the tests of time.” — Maggie B. Gale, University of Manchester“Although they were recognized in their day for their adroit craft and social acuity, until recent successful revivals, Githa Sowerby’s plays remained largely neglected. In this carefully curated edition of three of her more enduring works, J. Ellen Gainor deftly guides the reader through their contexts and critical reception. Sowerby should be regarded as a modern political dramatist of the first order, and in making these plays available for a wide readership, Gainor recuperates an important figure for feminist and theatre histories.” — Brad Kent, Laval UniversityTable of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction Githa Sowerby: A Brief Chronology A Note on the TextsRutherford and Son Introduction Rutherford and Son: A Play in Three ActsA Man and Some Women Introduction A Man and Some Women: A Play in Three ActsThe Stepmother Introduction The Stepmother: A Play in a Prologue and Three ActsAppendix A: The Fabian Context 1. From Bernard Shaw, 'Preface to the 1908 Reprint,' Fabian Essays (1908) 2. From William Archer, 'Fabianism and the Drama,' The New Age (3-24 October 1908) Appendix B: The Feminist Context 1. From Woman (26 September 1894) 2. From C. Morgan-Dockrell, 'Is the New Woman a Myth?,' The Humanitarian (January-June 1896) 3. From Arabella Kenealy, 'The Dignity of Love,' The Humanitarian (January-June 1896) 4. From Cicely Hamilton, Marriage as a Trade (1909) Appendix C: The Economic Context 1. From Louise Creighton, 'The Employment of Educated Women,' The Nineteenth Century (November 1901) 2. From 'Statistics of Women's Employment,' The Review of Reviews (July 1905) 3. From M.[abel] A.[tkinson], The Economic Foundations of the Women's Movement (June 1914) Appendix D: The Theatrical Context 1. Rutherford and Son: First Performance and Cast List 2. Rutherford and Son: Critical Reception a. Phil Farnum, 'Fame in a Day' b. 'A New Playwright: Remarkable Achievement by K.G. Sowerby,' Westminster Gazette (1 February 1912) c. E.A. Baughan, 'A New Dramatist: ‘Rutherford and Son' at the Court' d. 'Miss Sowerby's Silence' e. J.W., '‘Rutherford and Son' at the Royal Court Theatre,' Westminster Gazette (1 February 1912) f. 'Royal Court Theatre,' London Times (2 February 1912) g. 'Our Point of View: Woman Wins,' The Vote (10 February 1912) h. 'The Little Theatre,' London Times (19 March 1912) i. R.P., 'A New Woman Playwright,' Votes for Women (29 March 1912) j. From John Palmer, '‘Rutherford and Son'' Saturday Review (30 March 1912) k. C.N.B., '‘Rutherford and Son' a Great Suffrage Play,' The Vote (20 July 1912) l. From Emma Goldman, The Social Significance of the Modern Drama (1914) 3. G.S. Street, 'Licensing Note' for Githa Sowerby, 'A Man and Some Women' (13 October 1914) 4. A Man and Some Women: First Performance and Cast List 5. A Man and Some Women: Critical Reception a. From 'New Plays at the Gaiety,' Manchester Courier (27 October 1914) b. From 'New Play at the Gaiety,' Manchester Despatch (26 October 1914) c. From H.[arold] B.[righouse], 'Gaiety Theatre: Two New Plays,' Manchester Guardian (27 October 1914) d. From 'The Gaiety,' Manchester Weekly Times (1 November 1914) e. From 'A Man and Some Women,' Sunday Chronicle (1 November 1914) 6. The Stepmother: First Performance and Cast List 7. The Stepmother Critical Reception a. 'The Stepmother,' The Era (16 January 1924) b. '‘The Stepmother' by Ghita [sic] Sowerby,' Illustrated London News (26 January 1924) c. 'The Stepmother' d. E.A.B.[aughan], '‘The Stepmother': New Drama Produced by The Play Actors' e. S.R.L., 'The Stepmother,' Referee (20 January 1924) Works Cited and Select Bibliography
£19.76
Broadview Press Ltd Salome
Book SynopsisSalome is Oscar Wilde’s most experimental—and controversial—play. In its own time, the play, written in French, was described by a reviewer as “an arrangement in blood and ferocity, morbid, bizarre, repulsive.” None, however, could deny the importance of Wilde’s creation. Contemporary audiences and reviewers variously regarded Salome as the symbol of a thrilling modernity, a challenge to patriarchy, a confession of desire, a sign of moral decay, a new form of art, and a revolt against the restraints of Victorian society. Less well known than Wilde’s beloved comedies, Salome is as enduringly modern and relevant.This edition uses the English translation done by Wilde’s lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, and overseen and corrected by Wilde himself. Appendices detail the play’s sources and provide extensive materials on its contemporary reception and dramatic productions.Trade Review“Salome illuminated! This edition presents Salome as a formally complex, richly intertextual, and generative phenomenon of international modernism. Kimberly Stern sets a superbly annotated text between an extensive introduction and several appendices documenting the play’s literary, cultural, and visual sources, its reception, and its translation, illustration, and performance histories. The edition offers copious source materials to augment the text, some requisite and some unexpected. Stern’s adept and unprecedented selection of contextual sources enhances the powerful and recurrent fascination of a play that has continuously spawned adaptations as well as controversy. This is where all students of Salome should start.” — Heidi Hartwig, Central Connecticut State UniversityTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroductionOscar Wilde: A Brief ChronologyA Note on the TextSalomeAppendix A: Sources Matthew 14:1-12, The Bible: Authorized King James Versionwith Apocrypha (2008) “Descent of the Goddess Ishtar into the Lower World,”The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East (1917) From Heinrich Heine, Atta Troll (1843) From J.C. Heywood, Herodias: A Dramatic Poem (1867) From Oscar Wilde, “Review of J.C. Heywood’s Salome,”Pall Mall Gazette (15 February 1888) From Stéphane Mallarmé, “La scéne: Nourrice—Hérodiade”(1864-67) From Gustave Flaubert, “Hérodias” (1877) William Wilde, “Salome” (1878) From Joris-Karl Huysmans, Á Rebours (1884) From Maurice Maeterlinck, La Princesse Maleine (1889) Appendix B: A Visual History Gustave Moreau, “The Apparition” (1876) Aubrey Beardsley, Design for the Title Page to the English Edition of Salome (1894) Aubrey Beardsley, Final Design for the Title Page (1894) Aubrey Beardsley, “The Woman in the Moon” (1894) Aubrey Beardsley, “The Climax” (1894) Appendix C: Contemporary Responses From Edgar Saltus, Oscar Wilde: An Idler’s Impression (1917) Pierre Louÿs, “Salomé: à Oscar W.” (30 June 1892) Letter from Oscar Wilde to Richard Le Gallienne (22/23 February 1893) From a Letter from Bernard Shaw to Oscar Wilde (28 February 1893) From a Letter from Max Beerbohm to Reginald Turner (February 1893) From “Salomé,” The Times (23 February 1893) From a Review of Salomé, Pall Mall Gazette (27 February 1893) Letter from Stéphane Mallarmé to Oscar Wilde (March 1893) From William Archer, “Mr. Oscar Wilde’s New Play,”Black and White (11 May 1893) From Lord Alfred Douglas, “Salomé: A Critical Overview,” The Spirit Lamp (1893) Appendix D: Translation History Letter from Lord Alfred Douglas to John Lane (30 September 1893) From a Letter from Lord Alfred Douglas to John Lane (16 November 1893) From a Letter from Oscar Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas (January-March 1897) From a Letter from Robert Ross to Frank Harris (undated) From Lord Alfred Douglas, Autobiography (1929) Translation Chart Appendix E: Performance History From Charles Ricketts, Self-Portrait (1939) From Graham Robertson, Time Was (1931) Photograph of Sarah Bernhardt in Costume as Salome (1891) From a Letter from Oscar Wilde to William Rothenstein (July 1892) “Mr. Oscar Wilde on Salome,” The Times (2 March 1893) From Oscar Wilde, “The Censure and Salome,” Pall Mall Budget (30 June 1892) Bernard Partridge, “A Wilde Idea,” Punch Magazine (9 July 1892) From a Letter from Max Beerbohm to Reginald Turner (June 1892) Oscar Wilde, “Plan de la scene” (1891) From M.J. du Tillet, “Théâtres” [review of the Paris premiere of Salome], Revue bleue politique et littéraire (1896) From Jean de Tinan, “Théâtre de l’oeuvre: Salomé” [review of the Paris premiere], Mercure de France (March 1896) From “Salome,” The Saturday Review (13 May 1905) Photograph of Alice Guszalewicz in Costume as Salome (c. 1910) “The Cult of the Clitoris,” The Vigilante (16 February 1918) From the Verbatim Report of the Trial of Noel Pemberton Billington, MP, on a Charge of Criminal Libel (1918) Select Bibliography
£18.95
Broadview Press Ltd The Spanish Tragedy
Book SynopsisThe Spanish Tragedy became one of the most successful plays on the Elizabethan English stage and laid the foundation of the revenge tragedy, a genre that playwrights returned to throughout the early modern era and that endures even today. The story surrounds the civil servant Hieronimo who joins Bel-imperia of the royal family to take revenge on her own brother for murdering Hieronimo's son, the object of her affection. The work goes far beyond a story of intrigue and brings up questions about aristocratic privilege, the moral hazards of revenge, the spectacle of violence, and the agency of women at court.This Broadview Edition includes a freshly edited text based on the 1592 edition, notes designed to help first-time readers understand and enjoy the work, an extensive introduction that situates the play in its literary and historical context, and extensive historical documents. The documents open up avenues of inquiry for students interested in the life and work of Thomas Kyd, the construction of women at court, the question of revenge, violence and entertainment in Elizabethan England, and Spain in the Elizabethan imagination.Trade Review“This is a superb edition of The Spanish Tragedy — a work of exemplary scholarship and sensitive critical intelligence. The notes and annotations are admirably clear and informative, and the introduction to Thomas Kyd’s enigmatic life and work is enthralling and illuminating. As well as providing us with a fresh, updated play text, Patrick McHenry gives us a vivid account of the political and cultural background to this great, foundational work of revenge tragedy. Readers of this edition of the play will be rewarded with abundant critical insights and thought-provoking commentary.” — Stephen Regan, Durham University“This foundational text of Renaissance drama and cultural history has been conservatively edited, helpfully glossed, and well annotated. In addition, a judicious selection of background materials (on revenge, honor, and forgiveness; Elizabethan blood lust; female agency; and Elizabethan perception of the Spanish temperament) makes this an excellent all-round edition for classroom use.” — Raymond-Jean Frontain, University of Central ArkansasTable of ContentsAcknowledgementsIntroductionThomas Kyd: A Brief ChronologyA Note on the TextThe Spanish TragedyAppendix A: Additional Passages of 1602Appendix B: Documents in the Life of Thomas Kyd From Richard Mulcaster, Positions (1581) Letter from Queen Elizabeth’s Privy Council (11 May 1593) Thomas Kyd, Two Letters to Sir John Puckering (1593) Thomas Kyd, Dedication to Robert Garnier’s Cornelia (1594) Appendix C: The Question of Revenge From the Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Romans From Seneca, Thyestes (first century CE) From “A Sermon against Contention and Brawling” (1547) From Richard Jones, The Book of Honor and Arms (1590) From William Westerman, Two Sermons of Assize (1600) From Ben Jonson, Introduction to Bartholomew Fair (1614) Sir Francis Bacon, “Of Revenge” (1625) Appendix D: Violence and Entertainment in Elizabethan England From Robert Langham, A Letter (1575) From William Harrison, Description of England (1586) From Philip Stubbes, The Anatomy of Abuses (1595) John Norden, Map of London (1593) The Triple Tree at Tyburn Appendix E: The Social Construction of Women at Court From Baldesar Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier (1528) From Juan Luis Vives, Instruction of Christian Women (1529) Queen Elizabeth’s Armada Speech to the Troops at Tilbury (9 August 1588) Lady Arbella Stuart, Letter to King James (c. December 1610) From Elizabeth Cary, The Tragedy of Mariam (1613) Appendix F: Spain in Elizabethan Culture From Richard Hakluyt, A Discourse on Western Planting (1584) From A Fig for the Spaniard (1591) From Sir Walter Raleigh, A Report of the Truth of the Fight about the Iles of Azores (1591) Works Cited and Further Reading
£18.86
Broadview Press Ltd The Octoroon
Book SynopsisRegarded by Bernard Shaw as a master of the theatre, Dion Boucicault was arguably the most important figure in drama in North America and in Britain during the second half of the nineteenth century. He was largely forgotten during the twentieth century—though he continued to influence popular culture (the iconic image of a woman tied to railway tracks as a train rushes towards her, for example, originates in a Boucicault melodrama). In the twenty-first century the gripping nature of his plays is being discovered afresh; when The Octoroon was produced as a BBC Radio play in 2012, director and playwright Mark Ravenhill described Boucicault’s dramas as “the precursors to Hollywood cinema.”In The Octoroon—the most controversial play of his career—Boucicault addresses the sensitive topic of race and slavery. George Peyton inherits a plantation, and falls in love with an octoroon—a person one-eighth African American, and thus, in 1859 Louisiana, legally a slave. The Octoroon opened in 1859 in New York City, just two years prior to the American Civil War, and created a sensation—as it did in its subsequent British production.This new edition includes a wide range of background contextual materials, an informative introduction, and extensive annotation.Trade Review“With this useful edition, my students can for the first time read a range of documents, brought together in one edition, recounting the drama’s staging and reception. By including reviews, descriptions of performances, and other contextualizing texts, editor Sarika Bose situates Boucicault’s drama in the transatlantic theatre and literary histories to which it rightly belongs and within which it should be read.” — Theresa Gaul, Texas Christian University“This new edition of The Octoroon contains valuable background information about Dion Boucicault and his career as a dramatist as well as apt selections from his letters. … Other enhancements, which include illustrations of playbills and related sheet music, demonstrate this drama’s popularity, while a judicious selection of reviews and letters to the editor of American and British periodicals show the audience and critics in written conversation with Boucicault about the play’s ending, which Boucicault himself described as ‘composed by the Public, and edited by the Author.’” — Nicole Tonkovich, University of California, San Diego“I have been teaching The Octoroon for years, and am so excited to turn from the Xeroxed piles of supplementary material to this thorough and informative edition that collects everything in one place and provides a rich context for Boucicault’s important work. This edition, with its careful recounting of the play’s alternative endings, supplies a framework for reading The Octoroon in terms of theatre history, transatlantic studies, and the global history of slavery.” — Helena Michie, Rice UniversityTable of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction The Octoroon Appendix A: American Reviews and Commentaries Appendix B: British Reviews and Commentaries Appendix C: Letters to Editors Concerning Lawsuit Appendix D: Boucicault's Letters to Editors Concerning the Play's Subject Matter Appendix E: Alternative Endings Appendix F: Documents Concerning Slavery Works Cited and Recommended Reading
£16.10
Broadview Press Ltd The Roaring Girl
Book SynopsisThe titular “Roaring Girl” of Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker’s comedy is Moll Cutpurse, a fictionalized version of Mary Frith, who attained legendary status in London by flouting gendered dress conventions, illegally performing onstage, and engaging in all manner of transgressive behavior from smoking and swearing to stealing. In the course of The Roaring Girl’s lively and complex plot of seduction and clever ruses, Moll shares her views on gender and sexuality, defends her honor in a duel, and demonstrates her knowledge of London’s criminal underworld. This edition of the play offers an informative introduction, thorough annotation, and a substantial selection of contextual materials from the period.Trade Review“With its uncompromising cross-dressed heroine, and its cheerful disregard for conventional sexual mores, The Roaring Girl offers a winning specimen of early modern London’s screwball comedy. Kelly Stage’s terrific edition brings the play’s rollicking schemes into sharp focus through clear accounts of its colorful language and historical references, juxtaposed with contemporary writings on cross-dressing, criminals, tobacco, and the real Moll Frith. This is a welcome resource for first-time readers and scholars alike.” — Tanya Pollard, Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York“Providing a nuanced and contextually sensitive introduction, Kelly Stage’s excellent edition of The Roaring Girl will prove immensely valuable to undergraduate and graduate students alike. Especially useful is Stage’s careful discussion of clothing transgression in relation to the complex gender and socioeconomic dynamics that shaped the play’s composition and staging. The text includes extensive and detailed explanatory notes that will help students and newcomers unpackage what can be a challenging play. The edition concludes with an array of contemporary historical documents that offer contextual background on issues relating to cross-dressing, theater life, criminality, and material culture.” — Matthew Kendrick, William Paterson University Table of Contents Introduction The Roaring Girl or Moll Cutpurse In Context A. On Mary Frith’s Life 1. from the Consistory Court of London Correction Book, 27 January 1611/12 2. The Last Will and Testament of Mary Markham, Alias Mary Frith (1659) B. On Theater, Gender, and Cross-Dressing 1. from Stephen Gosson, Plays Confuted in Five Actions, Proving that they are not to be suffered in a Christian Commonweal (1582) 2. from anonymous, The Life of Long Meg of Westminster, containing the mad merry pranks she played in her lifetime, not only in performing sundry quarrels with diverse ruffians about London: but also how valiantly she behaved herself in wars of Boulogne (1620, revised 1635) 3. from anonymous, Hic Mulier: or, The Man-Woman: Being a Medicine to Cure the Coltish Disease of the Staggers in the Masculine-Feminines of our Time (1620) 4. anonymous, Haec-Vir: or, The Womanish-Man (1620) C. On Criminals 1. from Thomas Harman, A Caveat for Common Cursitors, Vulgarly Called Vagabonds (1566, revised 1567/68) 2. from Thomas Dekker, The Bellman of London Bringing to Light the Most Notorious Villainies That Are Now Practised in the Kingdom (1608) D. On Tobacco 1. from anonymous, “A Merry Progress to London to see Fashions, by a young Country Gallant, that had more Money than Wit” (1615) 2. from King James I, A Counterblast to Tobacco (1604) Further Reading
£15.15
Broadview Press Ltd Othello: A Broadview Internet Shakespeare Edition
Book SynopsisAlthough other Shakespeare plays offer higher body counts, more gore, and more plentiful scenes of heartbreak, Othello packs an unusually powerful affective punch, stunning us with its depiction of the swiftness and thoroughness with which love can be converted to hatred, and forcing us to confront our complicity with social and political institutions that can put all of us—but especially the most vulnerable among us—at risk.This edition features a variety of interleaved materials—from facsimile pages and musical scores to illustrations and extended discussions of myth and folklore—that provide a context for the social and cultural allusions in the play. Appendices offer excerpts from Shakespeare’s key sources and historical materials on marriage, jealousy, and the treatment of people of African descent in Elizabethan England.A collaboration between Broadview Press and the Internet Shakespeare Editions project at the University of Victoria, the editions developed for this series have been comprehensively annotated and draw on the authoritative texts newly edited for the ISE. This innovative series allows readers to access extensive and reliable online resources linked to the print edition.Trade Review“The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice has found here its ideal edition for our times. In addition to Jessica Slight’s unfussy and accessible text, the Broadview/Internet Shakespeare Edition offers an up-to-date selection of images, sources, analogs, and historical readings, many of them not seen before in connection with Othello. Race, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, household governance, and early modern psychology receive broad and deep attention, inviting readers to encounter Shakespeare’s play in strikingly contemporary terms.” — Bruce R. Smith, University of Southern CaliforniaTable of ContentsFOREWORDACKNOWLEDGEMENTSINTRODUCTIONSHAKESPEARE’S LIFESHAKESPEARE’S THEATERWILLIAM SHAKESPEARE AND OTHELLOA BRIEF CHRONOLOGYTHE DATE OF THE PLAYA NOTE ON THE TEXTTHE TRAGEDY OF OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICEAPPENDIX A: SOURCES AND EARLY ANALOGS From Cinthio, Gli Heccatommithi (1565) From Geoffrey Fenton, Certain Tragical Discourses (1567) From George Peele, The Battle of Alcazar (1588–89) From Robert Greene, Selimus (1594) From William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus (1594) From William Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Sonnets 57 and 58 (1609) From Thomas Coryate, Coryats Crudities (1611) From Maurice G. Dowling, Othello Travestie (1836) APPENDIX B: CULTURAL CONTEXTS Prayers for Protection against Ottoman Attacks a. A form to be used in common prayer (1565)b. Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, A form to be used in common prayer (1566) Elizabeth I, Letters Permitting Deportation of Blackamoors from England (1596–97) a. 11 July 1596b. 18 July 1596 From Robert Cleaver, A Godly Form of Household Government for the Ordering of Private Families (1598) From Thomas Wright, The Passions of the Mind in General (1604) From Ste[phen?] B., Counsel to the Husband: To the Wife Instruction (1608) From Nicholas Coeffeteau, “Of Jealousy, Whether it Be an Effect and Sign of Love” (1621) WORKS CITED AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
£15.26
Broadview Press Ltd The Alchemist
Book SynopsisThe Alchemist has long been admired as one of Ben Jonson's best dramas-Samuel Taylor Coleridge famously deemed it one of the most 'perfect' plots in literature. Its satiric cleverness and metatheatricality have delighted audiences from its first performance to the present day; readers and play-goers are swept up in the schemes of a fake alchemist and other determined fraudsters whose scams appear to offer easy wealth and immortality to their morally compromised victims. While no characters emerge unscathed by Jonson's satire, and while alchemy itself is revealed as most likely a sham, the play is nonetheless a tribute to the transformative - indeed, the alchemical-powers of the theater.This edition includes a helpful introduction to the play, including discussion of its performance history and background information on alchemy. Thorough annotations to the text are also provided, as are contextual materials, including a selection of Jonson's sources, further materials on alchemy, and an example of the 'rogue' or 'coney-catching' literature that informs Jonson's portrayal of the grifters in the play.Trade ReviewIntroducing students to this witty, farcical play will be so much easier with the new Broadview edition. The joy of this play is its topical satire, and to access it students need a thorough grounding in alchemy and in the contemporary culture of early modern London, both of which this edition provides."—Margaret J. Oakes, Furman UniversityThe new Broadview edition of The Alchemist, edited by John Greenwood, is a delight. The play’s annotations are clear and complete. The edition includes extensive contextual materials, including coney-catching pamphlets, an alchemist’s guide, and some of Jonson’s own commonplace book’s entries. I am looking forward to teaching the play with this exciting new text."—Rebecca Ann Bach, University of Alabama at Birmingham"John Greenwood’s edition of Ben Jonson’s riotous early modern comedy, The Alchemist, captures the play’s essentials for student and more advanced scholar alike with its concise and informative introduction, helpful notes, and judiciously chosen appendix material. The edition will be a delight to use in the classroom."—Mathew Martin, Brock UniversityTable of Contents Introduction The Alchemist In Context On Alchemy: from Geoffrey Chaucer, 'The Canon's Yeoman's Tale,' from The Canterbury Tales (1387-1400) Desiderius Erasmus, 'The Alchemist' (1524) from Martin Ruland, A Lexicon of Alchemy (1612) On Criminals and 'Coney-Catching': from Robert Greene, A Disputation Between a He Cony-Catcher and a She Cony-Catcher (1592) Image: from Thomas Harman, A Caveat or Warning for Common Cursetors vulgarly called Vagabonds (1566; revised 1567/68) On Playwriting: from Aristotle, Poetics from Ben Jonson, Timber, or Discoveries made upon men and matter as they have flowed out of his daily Readings, or had their reflux to his peculiar Notion of the Times (1641)
£12.95
Broadview Press Ltd The Witch of Edmonton
Book SynopsisAt the center of this remarkable 1621 play is the story of Elizabeth Sawyer, the titular "Witch of Edmonton," a woman who had in fact been executed for the crime of witchcraft mere months before the play's first performance. Yet hers is only one of several plots that animate The Witch of Edmonton. Blending sensational drama with domestic tragedy and comic farce, this complex and multi-layered play by Dekker, Ford, and Rowley emphasizes the mundane realities and interpersonal conflicts that are so often at the heart of sensational occurrences. This edition of their work offers a compelling and informative introduction, thorough annotation, and a selection of contextual materials that helps set the play in the context of the "witch-craze" of Jacobean England.Table of Contents Introduction William Rowley, John Ford, and Thomas Dekker The Witch of Edmonton The Witch of Edmonton In Context from James I (James VI of Scotland), Demonology, In Form of a Dialogue, Divided into Three Books (1597) from William Perkins, A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft; so far forth as it is revealed in the Scriptures, and manifest by true experience (1608) from John Cotta, The Trial of Witchcraft, Showing the True and Right Method of the Discovery: With a Confutation of Erroneous Ways (1616) Henry Goodcole, The Wonderful Discovery of Elizabeth Sawyer, a Witch, late of Edmonton, her conviction and condemnation and death. Together with the relation of the Devil's access to her, and their conference together (1621)
£17.05
Broadview Press Ltd The Digby Play of Mary Magdalene: A Broadview
Book SynopsisFew medieval plays in English have attracted as much twenty-first-century interest as the Digby Mary Magdalene, an early-fifteenth-century drama that, as Chester Scoville puts it, is “probably the most spectacular of the late medieval English plays.” This new edition presents a modernized text of the play, with extensive annotation (both marginal glosses and explanatory footnotes), an insightful introduction, and a helpful selection of background contextual materials.Trade Review“This new Broadview edition makes medieval England’s most extraordinary play accessible to a broader audience. With modernized spelling throughout, brief yet informative notes and glosses, and an introduction that highlights the play’s extravagant dramatic complexity, Scoville’s edition welcomes students into the fascinating world of this text. Material from biblical and hagiographical sources that would have been familiar to both the playwright and his late medieval audience provide further context for understanding the female character at its center, while reproductions of two of the sole surviving manuscript’s pages offer a glimpse of the process by which the script was preserved for future generations. This is an important addition to the Broadview library.” — Joanne Findon, Trent University“Scoville’s Digby Play of Mary Magdalene offers an accessible and expertly-glossed text in modernized spelling. Its introduction discusses the play’s poetic and thematic features, along with its manuscript history, and provides production information. The explanatory and textual notes and the biblical sources enable undergraduate students to access the greatness and complexity of this play and to join the scholarly conversation about it.” — Frank Napolitano, Radford University“[The Broadview Mary Magdalene] is a text that reads well, is clear and easy to follow, and reduces the language barrier that many undergraduates find difficult to overcome. Perhaps the most pedagogically valuable part of Scoville’s edition is the ‘In Context’ section, [which]… provides some source material associated with the story of Mary Magdalene, alongside photographic facsimiles and transcriptions of two folios from the Digby manuscript. … Scoville’s edition is valuable and well suited to introducing first-year undergraduates to the play of Mary Magdalene; accessible, affordable, and with basic contextual information, it invites students to engage with this remarkable play without feeling overwhelmed by its strangeness and cultural difference.” — Speculum“I have seen enough book covers that bear little resemblance to the inside contents to appreciate one that does! But more importantly, the editing of the text is excellent and the apparatus ideal for a student or general audience. … those who choose to read or teach this text will find this edition to be a valuable tool.” — Jenny Rytting, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance TeachingTable of Contents Acknowledgments Introduction The Digby Play of Mary Magdalene In Context Source Material from the Douay-Rheims Bible from Mark 16 from Luke 7 from John 11 from John 20 from Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda Aurea(The Golden Legend ) The Manuscript Folio 95r Folio 116r
£17.95
Broadview Press Ltd The York Corpus Christi Play: Selected Pageants
Book SynopsisThe York Corpus Christi Play as we know it consists of 47 surviving individual plays or “pageants,” 27 of which are included in this volume. (The whole is always referred to in the singular, following the usage of medieval York itself.) This cycle of plays was produced by the York civic government and its occupational guilds—called “crafts”—and performed annually for nearly 200 years on Corpus Christi day, a mid-summer feast with a movable date that could fall between May 23 and June 24. The York Corpus Christi play is the only extant and complete cycle of plays performed on Corpus Christi day in England throughout the play's life. The earliest record we have of the York play is from 1376; the last performance until the 20th century was in 1569. Together these 27 plays represent the cycle’s core narrative of creation, fall, and salvation. In addition to 27 of the pageants, this new edition includes extensive annotation (both marginal glosses and explanatory footnotes), a wide-ranging introduction, and a helpful selection of background contextual materials.Trade Review“Fitzgerald has made the York Corpus Christi Play accessible to students in a way that it has never been before. She provides an instructive and incisive overview of the play’s complex performance history, spanning from the fourteenth century to the present day. The pageants’ straightforward introductions and modernized spellings open them up to a broader audience of students who will undoubtedly enjoy analyzing and performing these foundational works of English drama.” — Kimberly Fonzo, The University of Texas at San Antonio“Christina M. Fitzgerald’s new edition of the York Plays will be a very valuable resource for teachers, students, and performers of early English drama. The volume features a well-chosen, expansive selection of pageants, including several important episodes anthologized for the first time. Combining well-edited texts and judicious annotations with key contemporary documents and images, Fitzgerald’s edition offers a richly explanatory introduction to one of England’s longest-lasting, most culturally significant performance traditions.” — Nicole R. Rice, St. John’s University“This useful textbook for the undergraduate classroom (or non-specialist) offers essential contextual material, ample footnotes, and adept glossing to assist students in discovering the complexity of the York Cycle. The play selection is intelligent and responsive to current critical trends. In addition, the lucid, up-to-date introduction and pageant notes set the Cycle in the context of urban lay devotion, facilitating deeper understanding of one of the most significant literary and cultural phenomena of the later Middle Ages. No doubt this will become the standard classroom edition.” — Margaret Aziza Pappano, Queen’s University “The York Corpus Christi Play offers students and scholars an outstanding overview of York’s social, economic, and literary past. Lucidly written, it situates the cultural complexity of York’s dramatic productions as both medieval and early modern phenomena. Fitzgerald’s judicious selection of plays maintains the feel for the original cycle, as she routinely edits them with an eye towards detail. She also glosses unfamiliar words and concepts, while providing content-rich headnotes to each play. An invaluable resource, the headnotes provide readers with comprehensive, relevant background information on theme, structure, and context, yet they don’t spoil the plays! This edition makes the York Corpus Christi plays accessible to a wide range of students in both literary studies and theater programs.” — Ann Hubert, St. Lawrence University “The Broadview Lucifer boasts, ‘I feel me featous and fair’ — here, and throughout this eminently teachable edition, Fitzgerald maintains York’s distinctive rhythm and diction, updating the spelling just enough so that undergraduates at all levels will quickly understand the words’ meaning (with the help of thoughtful glosses) while still feeling the poetry’s rap-battle bombast (and, later, its rich working-class pathos). Throughout, introductory material lays down key fundamentals (form, content, context, performance) for each pageant, providing built-in lecture notes and provocations for close reading. Traditional literary, religious, and archivally-based readings are well-represented here, but sharpened and updated toward use in woke twenty-first-century classrooms (Fitzgerald’s impressive prior scholarship on gender leaves many visible marks). Culminating in an enjoyable multimedia array of contextual materials, this edition is truly featous (elegant, neat, handsome, and cleverly fashioned), and certainly fair (not only pleasing to the eye, but also even-handed in its scholarship and implicit pedagogy).” — Matthew Sergi, University of Toronto, St. George Campus “Christina Fitzgerald provides an accessible edition, rich with supplementary materials, that is sure to be an immediate success with teachers of medieval drama. … With its balancing of an accessible text with a rich variety of resources for understanding the York Play's cultural contexts and history of performance, this convenient and thoughtfully put together book will undoubtedly become the new standard classroom edition of the York Play.” — Emma Lipton, The Medieval ReviewTable of Contents Introduction The York Corpus Christi Play: Selected Pageants The Barkers Pageant 1: The Creation of the Angels and the Fall of Lucifer The Plasterers Pageant 2: The Creation The Coopers Pageant 5: The Fall of Adam and Eve The Shipwrights Pageant 8: The Building of the Ark The Fishers and Mariners Pageant 9: The Flood The Parchmentmakers and Bookbinders Pageant 10: Abraham and Isaac The Hosiers Pageant 11: Moses and Pharaoh The Spicers Pageant 12: The Annunciation and Visitation The Pewterers and Founders Pageant 13: Joseph's Trouble About Mary The Tilethatchers Pageant 14: The Nativity The Chandlers Pageant 15: The Shepherds The Masons; The Goldsmiths Pageant 16: Herod and the Magi; The Offering of the Magi The Girdlers and Nailers Pageant 19: The Slaughter of the Innocents The Capmakers Pageant 24: The Woman Taken in Adultery and the Raising of Lazarus The Skinners Pageant 25: The Entry into Jerusalem The Bowers and Fletchers Pageant 29: Christ Before Annas and Caiaphas The Tapiters and Couchers Pageant 30: The First Trial Before Pilate: The Dream of Pilate’s Wife The Litsters Pageant 31: The Trial Before Herod The Tilemakers Pageant 33: The Second Trial Before Pilate: The Judgment The Pinners Pageant 35: The Crucifixion The Butchers Pageant 36: The Death of Christ The Saddlers Pageant 37: The Harrowing of Hell The Carpenters Pageant 38: The Resurrection The Winedrawers Pageant 39: Christ's Appearance to Mary Magdalene The Drapers Pageant 44: The Death of Mary The Weavers Pageant 45: The Assumption of Mary The Mercers Pageant 47: The Last Judgment In Context Four Middle English Crucifixion Poems (c. 1340-1400) “Ye that passen by the way” “Men rent me on rood” “Stand well, Mother, under rood” “I sike when I sing” Select Civic and Guild Records From the Mercers' Pageant Accounts (1462) From the City Chamberlains’ Rolls: Account of Receipts for Station Placement (1462) An Ordinance of the Tanners (1476) From the City Council Minutes: Two Judgments Concerning Pageant Costs (1517) Manuscript Images Page from the Tile Thatchers’ Nativity Page from the Girdlers’ and Nailers’ Slaughter of the Innocents Page from the Pinners’ Crucifixion Other Images Holkham Bible: Adam and Eve Bedford Hours: Noah Building the Ark Canterbury Psalter: Scenes from Christ’s infancy Holkham Bible: Crucifixion Gough Psalter: The Harrowing of Hell
£17.95
Broadview Press Ltd Selimus
Book SynopsisThis Broadview Edition of Robert Greene’s Selimus is the first single-volume, modernized edition of this underrated dramatic gem in over a century. First published in 1594, the play grippingly stages the bloody fratricidal warfare inaugurating the reign of Selim I (1512-20) as emperor of the Ottoman Empire. Contributing to the expansion of the range of readily available non-Shakespearean early modern English plays, the edition is designed for scholars and students alike, in the study, classroom, or theatre. The critically edited text of the play is accompanied by a full introduction, comprehensive annotations, and ample contextual material from the early modern period, including Greene’s pamphlet Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit.Trade Review“Having masterfully edited Marlowe’s original for Broadview, Mathew R. Martin now turns his attention to Selimus, one of the so-called ‘Sons of Tamburlaine.’ Martin’s judicious notes, commentary, and appendices ensure that students and scholars alike can make sense of the play’s complex web of Machiavellian intrigue, its engagement with contemporary anxieties about atheism, Islam, and empire, and its place in the repertory of the Queen’s Men.” — Brett Greatley-Hirsch, University of Leeds“This fine, user-friendly edition does a terrific job of contextualizing and explaining the play, showing its place in Elizabethan theatrical culture and making it newly accessible to readers. It reveals Selimus as not just blood and thunder but also an important document in the history of both Western perceptions of Islam and the emergence of atheism and Machiavellianism as philosophical positions.” — Lisa Hopkins, Sheffield Hallam University“This edition of Selimus gives us a provocative follow-up to Mathew Martin’s earlier editorial work on The Jew of Malta and Tamburlaine the Great. With an informative introduction and a wealth of detailed annotations, Martin alerts readers to the play’s essential socio-political and cultural contexts, especially those having to do with atheism and with Anglo-Ottoman relations in the medieval and early modern periods. Timely and informative, Martin’s Selimus will appeal as much to scholars and students interested in the eclectic canon of Queen’s Men plays as to book buyers wanting to expand their knowledge of Elizabethan drama.” — Kirk Melnikoff, University of North Carolina CharlotteTable of Contents AcknowledgementsIntroductionRobert Greene: A Brief Chronology of his Life and TimesA Note on the TextThe First Part of the Tragical Reign of Selimus, Sometime Emperor of the Turks Appendix A: Robert Greene, Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit (1592)Appendix B: Atheism and Machiavellianism 1. From Innocent Gentillet, A Discourse Upon the Means of Well Governing and Maintaining in Good Peace a Kingdom or Other Principality … Against Nicholas Machiavel the Florentine (1602) 2. Thomas Kyd, Letters to Sir John Puckering about Christopher Marlowe (1593) 3. Richard Baines, “A note containing the opinion of Christopher Marlowe concerning his damnable judgment of religion and scorn of God’s word” (1593) 4. From Francis Bacon, “Of Atheism” (1625) Appendix C: Early Modern English Representations of Islam 1. From George Whetstone, The English Mirror (1586) 2. From Anonymous, Sir Bevis of Hampton (1585) 3. From Giles Fletcher, The Policy of the Turkish Empire (1597) Works Cited and Further Reading
£17.06
Broadview Press The Broadview Anthology of Restoration and
Book SynopsisThis exciting second edition provides an exceptional range of plays edited by leading scholars of Restoration and eighteenth-century theatre. In addition to fifteen plays from the first edition are four new plays and one new afterpiece: Nathaniel Lee?s The Rival Queens, John Vanbrugh?s The Provoked Wife, David Garrick?s Miss in Her Teens, Richard Cumberland?s The West Indian, and Elizabeth Inchbald?s Such Things Are. Every play now features an engaging headnote and a fully edited dramatis personae, prologue, and epilogue. The innovative introduction plunges its readers into the experience of playgoing in London, and the second edition also features supplementary texts, including select actor and actress biographies and theatrical documents that provide a vivid cultural context.
£53.60
Broadview Press Ltd Slaves in Algiers; or, A Struggle for Freedom
Book SynopsisAs Americans began defining who was to be counted a citizen in their newly-established republic, Susanna Rowson’s comic opera Slaves in Algiers (1794) makes an earnest case that women be accorded the rights guaranteed to men, playfully turning sexual hierarchies on their head: “Women were born for universal sway; / Men to adore, be silent, and obey.” A fast-paced plot, engaging characterization, and rollicking songs ensured that Slaves in Algiers garnered success when it was first performed at the New Theater in Philadelphia. But Rowson’s play also engages in perpetuating racial stereotypes: set in Algiers at a time when Barbary pirates were seizing more and more U.S. ships in the Mediterranean Sea, Slaves in Algiers is written for a largely white audience driven by outrage at the enslavement of white people in the Barbary states. The play is critical of many aspects of North African cultures, particularly the practices of piracy and enslavement, while not acknowledging the moral and ethical taint of America’s own enslavement of African Americans. In recent years, critics have given increased attention to Slaves in Algiers, particularly to its interwoven feminist, nationalist, and imperialist themes, as well as to its treatment of Muslim and Jewish characters.This volume is one of a number of editions that have been drawn from the pages of the acclaimed Broadview Anthology of American Literature; like the others, it is designed to make a range of material from the anthology available in a format convenient for use in a wide variety of contexts.Trade ReviewCOMMENTS ON The Broadview Anthology of American Literature“The expansion, diversification, and revitalization of the texts and terms of American literary history in recent years is made marvelously accessible in the … new Broadview Anthology of American Literature.” — Hester Blum, Penn State University“The Broadview Anthology of American Literature is, quite simply, a breakthrough. … Meticulously researched and expertly assembled, this anthology should be the new gold standard for scholars and teachers alike.” — Michael D’Alessandro, Duke University“So much thought has been put into every aspect of the Broadview Anthology of American Literature, from the selection of texts to their organization to their presentation on the page; it will be a gift to classrooms for years to come.” — Lara Langer Cohen, Swarthmore College “The multiplicity of early American locations, languages, and genres is here on wondrous display.” — Jordan Alexander Stein, Fordham University “Above all, this is a volume for the 21st century. … Its capaciousness and ample resource materials make for a text that is always evolving and meeting its readers in new ways.” — Russ Castronovo, University of Wisconsin-Madison“a rich collection that reflects the diversity of American literatures…. [and] that never forgets its most important audience: students. There is a wealth of material here that will help them imagine and reimagine what American literature could be.” — Michael C. Cohen, UCLA Table of ContentsIntroduction Susanna Haswell Rowson Slaves in Algiers; or, A Struggle for Freedom: A Play, Interspersed with Songs, in Three Acts Slaves in Algiers; or, A Struggle for Freedom: A Play, Interspersed with Songs, in Three Acts
£16.95
University of Arkansas Press The Repertory of Shakespeare's Company, 1594-1613
Book SynopsisMost modern scholars regard William Shakespeare and his repertory company as the pre-eminent theatre group of its day; Roslyn Lander Knutson contends that they were also practical entrepreneurs who both shaped and responded to current theatrical tastes and whose playhouse practices closely paralleled those of their competitors. In ""The Repertory of Shakespeare's Company"" Knutson demystifies Shakespeare and his company by providing a clear vision of the dynamics of play production and play-going in Shakespeare's England, taking Shakespeare and his company down from their lofty pedestal where Victorian scholars placed them. She argues that Shakespeare and his company should not be seen as privileged and apart from the playing companies of the period, but should be viewed exactly as they were: as the hard-nosed participants in the highly competitive world of English theatre. A reference guide and critical revaluation, ""The Repertory of Shakespeare's Company"" combines an array of factual information with a keen insight into not just Shakespearean ""masterpieces"" but also the seldom-read plays, to give an account of theatrical life in Shakespeare's London.
£36.05
Purdue University Press Propuestas par (re)construir una nación: El
Book SynopsisPropuestas para (re)construir una nación explores how Emilia Pardo Bazán (1851–1921) imagines and engenders the Spanish nation in her theatrical production staged and/or published between 1898 and 1909. In the aftermath of Spain's colonial losses, when Spain's male authors, in a growing mood of collective introspection, directed their attention to the homeland, Pardo Bazán generated a series of theatrical proposals to revitalize the nation. In her plays, she manifests her ideas about Spain's fin de siècle crisis, reflects on Spain's place in the international arena (emphasizing the nation's civilizing mission), critiques the intoxicating power of the so-called golden legend (Spain's glorious past), and sees the origin of the nation's hardship in the lack of education of its inhabitants and in the inequality between men and women. Pardo Bazán's vision of Spain is forward looking,and she imagines a future in which new social configurations will be possible. Instead of locating her plays in an ancestral Castile, she situates several ofher works in her native Galicia. For the author, Spain's regional issues are inseparable from the country's national issues and these can all be traced back to the woman question. The playwright appeals to the spectators/readers' reasonand emotions in order to let them think and feel that the problems the nation faces can all be attributed to the Spanish men. For Pardo Bazán, Spain's potential for national regeneration resides in the inner strength of women. In cross-fire with the main male players in the literary field of her time, Pardo Bazán offers her critique of national decadence in plays that cleverly subvert a broad range of by then outdated theatrical conventions, and that introduce the public to new currents of theatrical innovation (Ibsen, Maeterlinck, d'Annunzio). Propuestas offers a new perspective on the participation of female authors in the contentious debate about the Spanish nation. Pardo Bazán's theater is an overlooked area in the author's extensive creative production, and Propuestas challenges the so often repeated topic of the backwardness of the Spanish stage and the alleged lack of innovation during the fin de siècle.Table of Contents Prefacio Introducción: El teatro de Emilia Pardo Bazán Capítulo uno: El vestido de boda (1898). Mujer y nación en un monólogo teatral Capítulo dos: Destino y muerte en La Suerte (1904) y La Muerte de la Quimera (1905) Capítulo tres: Violencia, perversidad y horror en Verdad (1906) Capítulo cuatro: Cuesta abajo (1906) y el problema de España Capítulo cinco: De/Regeneratión en El becerro de metal (1906) Capítulo seis: Juventud o las (des)ilusiones del deseo (1909) Capítulo siete: Imperio, darwinismo y responsabilidad moral en Las raíces (1909) Epílogo: La Malinche (esbozo de un drama) Apéndices Apéndice uno: Artículos escritos por Emilia Pardo Bazán y consultados en este estudio Apéndice dos: Las obras teatrales de Emilia Pardo Bazán comentadas en este libro Notas Obras citadas Índice alfabético
£35.06
University of Massachusetts Press Beyond the Body: The Boundaries of Medicine and
Book Synopsis
£29.95
University of Massachusetts Press The Book of the Play: Playwrights, Stationers and
Book SynopsisThe Book of the Play is a collection of essays that examines early modern drama in the context of book history. Focusing on the publication, marketing, and readership of plays opens fresh perspectives on the relationship between the cultures of print and performance, and more broadly between drama and the public sphere. Marta Straznicky's introduction offers a survey of approaches to the history of play reading in this period, and the collection as a whole consolidates recent work in textual, bibliographic, and cultural studies of printed drama. Individually, the essays advance our understanding of play reading as a practice with distinct material forms, discourses, social settings, and institutional affiliation. Part One, ""Real and Imagined Communities,"" includes four essays on play-reading communities and the terms in which they are distinguished from the reading public at large. Cyndia Clegg surveys the construction of readers in prefaces to published plays; Lucy Munro traces three separate readings of a single play, Edward Sharpham's The Fleer; Marta Straznicky studies women as readers of printed drama; and Elizabeth Sauer describes how play reading was mobilized for political purposes in the period of the civil war. In Part Two, ""Play Reading and the Book Trade,"" five essays consider the impact of play reading on the public sphere through the lens of publishing practices. Zachary Lesser offers a revisionist account of black-letter typeface and the extent to which it may be understood as an index of popular culture; Alan Farmer examines how the emerging news trade of the 1620s and 1630s affected the marketing of printed drama; Peter Berek traces the use of generic terms on title pages of plays to reveal their intersection with the broader culture of reading; Lauren Shohet demonstrates that the Stuart masque had a parallel existence in the culture of print; and Douglas Brooks traces the impact print had on eclipsing performance as the medium in which the dramatist could legitimately lay claim to having authored his text. The individual essays focus on selected communities of readers, publication histories, and ideologies and practices of reading; the collection as a whole demonstrates the importance of textual production and reception to understanding the place of drama in the early modern public sphere.
£22.75
Theatre Communications Group Inc.,U.S. Frank's Home
Book Synopsis
£11.39
Theatre Communications Group Inc.,U.S. The Quality of Mercy: Reflections on Shakespeare
Book Synopsis
£11.39
Theatre Communications Group Inc.,U.S. China Doll (TCG Edition)
Book Synopsis
£9.99
