The Dramatic Works in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon: Volume 10, The Honest Man's Fortune, Rollo, Duke of Normandy, The Spanish Curate, The Lover's Progress, The Fair Maid of the Inn, The Laws of Candy


Book Description

This is the tenth and final volume in a ten-volume series of the critical old-spelling texts of the plays in the Beaumont and Fletcher canon, in which the texts are established on modern bibliographical principles. This volume contains the texts of six plays written by Fletcher and his collaborators, Nathan Field, Philip Massinger, Ben Jonson, George Chapman, John Ford and John Webster. Each play is introduced by a discussion of the text and authorship, has variant readings in footnotes, and is followed by full textual notes and lists of press-variants, emendations of accidentals and historical collations. At the back of this concluding volume there is a useful index showing how the plays are distributed between the volumes, and a table giving the authorship of the plays.







Massinger’s Italy


Book Description

Massinger’s Italy: Re-Imagining Italian Culture in the Plays of Philip Massinger offers the first book-length account of the pervasive influence of Italian culture on the canon of Philip Massinger, one of the most successful playwrights of the post-Shakespearean period. This volume explores the relationships between Massinger and Italian literary, dramatic and intellectual culture in the larger context of Anglo-Italian cultural exchanges. The book investigates the influence of Italian culture, considering Massinger’s engagement and appropriation of Italian texts, dramatic and political theories and ideas related to the country and his use of Italy as a setting. Massinger’s Italy offers a fresh and unexpected perspective on the development of Anglo-Italian discourse on the early modern English stage, showing to what extent Massinger contributed to the myth of Italy and to the circulation of Italian culture and shedding light on the complex system of Anglo-Italian interconnections within the corpus of Massinger’s plays as well as with the works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries.







The Cambridge Edition of Works of Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea: Volume 1, Early Manuscript Books


Book Description

This is the first ever complete critical edition of the writings of Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea (1661–1720), including work printed in her lifetime and material left in manuscript form at her death. Textual analysis, based on print and manuscript copies in repositories across the United Kingdom and the United States, reveals her revision processes and uses of manuscript and print. Extensive commentary clarifies her techniques, sources, contexts, and diction. A detailed essay traces the history of her works' reception and transmission. The result is a complete view of her achievements that will promote more accurate assessments of her contributions to literary and cultural shifts, including perspectives on literary value, women's equality, religion, and affairs of state. This first volume provides established texts of Finch's early manuscript books, including Poems on Several Subjects and Miscellany Poems with Two Plays written under her pen name, Ardelia.







The Reformation


Book Description

The Reformation (1673), attributed to Joseph Arrowsmith, is an amusing satire on the libertine manners of the Stuart court. A group of young men in Venice set up a society to reform sexual mores “à la mode d’Angleterre” and liberate women from the tyranny of fathers and husbands. Described by a contemporary critic as “the Reverse to the Laws of Morality and Virtue”, the play was quickly withdrawn from the stage. The comedy also offers a burlesque portrait of Poet Laureate John Dryden, poking fun at his critical opinions and dramatic production. This is the firts critical edition of the play. The editors place it in its social and cultural context and present a fully annotated text, which enables today’s reader to enjoy and understand Arrowsmith’s lively picture of Restoration life.




The Indistinct Human in Renaissance Literature


Book Description

Argues for the necessity of a re-articulation of the differences that separated man from other forms of life. The essays in this collection argue for recognition of the persistently indistinct nature of humans, who cannot be finally divided ontologically or epistemologically from other forms of matter.




The Staple of News


Book Description