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        Literature & Literary Studies
        May 2009

        Thomas of Woodstock

        by Peter Corbin, David Bevington, Douglas Sedge, Richard Dutton, Alison Findlay, Helen Ostovich

        This anonymous manuscript play has long been the subject of scholarly dispute regarding its relationship with Shakespeare's Richard II. This edition, which thoroughly re-examines the text, situates the play within its historical and political context, relating it to the genre of chronicle drama to which it belongs. The manuscript is of particular interest in that it appears to have been used in the playhouse over a considerable period of time and contains what seems to be evidence of the theatre practice of the time. The play is also of special interest for its skilful and original handling of source material which may well have influenced Shakespeare's Richard II. The extensive appendices drawn from Holinshed, Grafton and Stow provide the reader with the opportunity to investigate the manner in which the dramatist has shaped the material. The editors argue for the play's stage-worthiness and dramatic complexity, suggesting that its range both of dramatic tone and social inclusiveness indicate the work of a dramatist of considerable skill and subtlety, equal or superior to the Shakespeare of the Henry VI plays. ;

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        Literature & Literary Studies
        May 2009

        The Magnetic Lady

        By Ben Jonson

        by David Bevington, Peter Happe, Richard Dutton, Alison Findlay, Helen Ostovich

        This is the new paperback edition of the first fully annotated volume of Ben Jonson's 'The Magnetic Lady' written in 1632. It contains textual and explanatory notes and the text is modernised for student use. The introduction places the play in the context of Jonson's later dramatic and poetic works and discusses the political context of the Caroline court. A performance history of the play and fresh material relating to its seventeenth-century reception are also provided. This edition by Peter Happè critically reappraises Jonson's much-neglected play and argues for its recognition as a work of real distinction. ;

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        Literature & Literary Studies
        December 2003

        Philaster: or Love Lies a-Bleeding

        Or, Love Lies A-Bleeding by Beaumont and Fletcher

        by David Bevington, Andrew Gurr, Richard Dutton, Alison Findlay, Helen Ostovich

        Now back in print after a lengthy absence, one of the most enduring plays of its time. Edited by the renowned scholar, and recent advisor to the Globe Theatre, Andrew Gurr. No real competition for this singular play. Joins the now very impressive roster of The Revels Plays, almost thirty of which are now in print. ;

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        Literature & Literary Studies
        July 2010

        An Humorous Day's Mirth

        by George Chapman

        by David Bevington, Charles Edelman, Richard Dutton, Alison Findlay, Helen Ostovich

        George Chapman is known today as a translator of Homer and as the author of dark tragedies such as Bussy D'Ambois. An Humorous Day's Mirth, written in 1597, was one of the most popular plays of the Elizabethan era. Not only was Chapman's play the Rose Theatre's greatest box-office success of that year, but it also presented an entirely new type of comedy, one that has profoundly influenced comic writing up to the present day. This play is the English theatre's first 'comedy of humours', in which the attitudes, behaviour, and social pretensions of contemporary men and women are satirised. Charles Edelman's is the first fully annotated, modern spelling edition of this long-neglected play. In his extensive introduction and commentary, Edelman discusses the intellectual, philosophical and theatrical background to Chapman's comedy, and shows that An Humorous Day's Mirth would delight the readers and audiences of today as much as it did those in 1597. ;

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        Literature & Literary Studies
        March 2005

        Antonio and Mellida

        John Marston

        by David Bevington, W Gair, Richard Dutton, Alison Findlay, Helen Ostovich

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

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        Literature & Literary Studies
        December 1999

        Volpone, or The Fox

        Ben Johnson

        by David Bevington, Brian Parker, Richard Dutton, Alison Findlay, Helen Ostovich

        This is the most thoroughly investigated edition of Volpone to date, based on a wider collation of the 1607 quarto and 1616 folio versions than was previously possible. It calls into question several accepted textual conclusions. The introduction sets Volpone in the context of Jonson's career at the time of writing and introduces new material on its relation to the Reynard beast epic and the commedia dell' arte. Ambiguities in the play are discussed with reference to two Renaissance perversions of the myth of the Golden Age. Particular attention is paid to the rhythmic effects of the play in performance, especially interweavings of the main plot and subplot. Fresh suggestions are made about the play's opening and its controversial conclusion in the light of experiments that have been made in performance since Volpone 's stage revival in 1921. The modernized text is accompanied by full commentary, notes and illustrations. The appendices include a discussion by John Cutts of the original music, passages translated from the original sources and analogues, and a full record of the play's modern stage history, its many adaptations, and its transformations into opera, musical comedy, film and television. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        January 2008

        Michaelmas Term

        Thomas Middleton

        by David Bevington, Gail Paster, Richard Dutton, Alison Findlay, Helen Ostovich, Hazel Bell

        Michaelmas Term is one of five satiric city comedies that the young playwright Thomas Middleton wrote for the boy players of St Paul's Cathedral, sometime before 1607. Set in a vividly detailed, realistic urban milieu at the start of London's social season, the play comes alive through the central contest between Ephestian Quomodo, an ambitious, land-hungry city merchant, and Richard Easy, a naive landowning gallant just arrived in the city. Easy is soon deep in debt and his struggle to recoup his debts and reclaim his land from Quomodo takes places against a sharply drawn set of London types - Quomodo's socially and sexually ambitious wife and daughter, the Scottish upstart Andrew Lethe, and his mistress the Country Wench, eager to exchange her virginity for an elegant new wardrobe. With its witty, bawdy dialogue and complex gulling action, the play offers an unusually cynical assessment of the social and familial displacements, and of the alienation and loss of cultural memory, so characteristic of life in the great metropolis of early modern London. In this sense, the play is an early satiric diagnosis of urban modernity. This edition, newly collated and edited, features complete explanations of the play's often bawdy exchanges and the complex stage action of the gulling and secondary plots. It will be invaluable for advanced students of the Middleton canon as well as all those interested in early modern London and its vibrant theatrical culture, especially the tradition of boy choristers as professional actors. ;

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        Literature & Literary Studies
        July 2013

        A Trick to Catch the Old One

        By Thomas Middleton

        by David Bevington, Paul Mulholland, Richard Dutton, Alison Findlay, Helen Ostovich

        This is the first single volume edition of A Trick to Catch the Old One for many decades. This edition presents a thoroughly reconsidered text based on collation of all known copies of the 1608 quarto (including material unnoticed by earlier editors). Textual analysis draws on detailed internal investigation and the printer's wider practice to propose that relatively improvisational procedures and a paper quota governed A Trick's printing operations. Discovery of an overlooked record revises the date of court performance to 1 January 1607, with implications for the play's early history. Critical discussion freshly examines the play's multi-layered ironic texture in relation to such issues as the status of women, marriage's relation to prostitution and vice versa, and the contemporary marriage market. And the Courtesan receives special attention in the context of this overarching ironic scheme. An extensive stage history explores original staging and documents revivals to 2011. The commentary is the most wide-ranging and comprehensive of all modern editions. ;

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        Literature & Literary Studies
        June 1999

        Antonio's Revenge

        by John Marston

        by David Bevington, W Gair, Richard Dutton, Alison Findlay, Helen Ostovich

        Part of the major re-launch of MUP's most prestigious series.. The text is supported by variant readings, detailed notes, and a statistical breakdown of word use.. A number of these plays are being performed at the Globe Theatre and in rep as well as being set on a number of drama courses.. The acclaimed and most authoritative version of these plays thought of as the 'companion' to the Arden Shakespeare.. The only commercially available edition of the play currently in print. ;

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        Literature & Literary Studies
        November 2000

        Bartholomew Fair

        By Ben Jonson

        by David Bevington, Suzanne Gossett, Richard Dutton, Alison Findlay, Helen Ostovich

        Of all of Jonson's plays, Bartholomew Fair with its focus on the conflict between a carnivalesque enjoyment of the flesh and society's desire for order and control, speaks most directly to the modern audience. This edition is the first to use the findings of feminist scholarship in examining the play's concern with forced marriage, pregnancy, sexual commerce and widowhood. Glosses and notes are provided for students and theatre-goers clarifying the language and dialects Jonson uses to individualise the characters in his prose masterpiece and helpfully explicating layers of meaning and topical references. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        March 2000

        The Staple of News

        by David Bevington, Tony Parr, Richard Dutton, Alison Findlay, Helen Ostovich

        Excellent Revels text now back in print at the new £9.99 price. Leading edition of this play by Ben Jonson - no other edition of this calibre at the moment. Professor Anthony Parr has a proven track record with the Three Jacobean Travel Plays (now in paperback at £14.99). The complete canon of Ben Jonson is being brought back into print in the Revels. The play itself is one of Jonson's best and has a prescient storyline about journalism being traduced and becoming entertainment instead of remaining factual. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        June 2016

        The Troublesome Reign of John, King of England

        By George Peele

        by David Bevington, Charles Forker, Charles R. Forker, Richard Dutton, Alison Findlay, Helen Ostovich

        Forker's critical edition fills the need for a fully annotated, historically contextualised and modernised text of the most important Elizabethan chronicle play apart from Shakespeare and Marlowe's Edward II. Now attributed definitely to George Peele, this drama helped to establish a major theatrical genre, raising contemporary political and religious issues through the dramatisation of medieval history in a compelling and popular fashion. A major source for Shakespeare, it throws new light on the bard's adaptation of earlier drama and helps to illustrate his working methods. With the full introduction and generous notes this Revels Plays edition will be the first port of call for students and enthusiasts of Elizabethan and early modern drama. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        March 1999

        The Maid's Tragedy

        Beaumont and Fletcher

        by David Bevington, T. W. Craik, Richard Dutton, Alison Findlay, Helen Ostovich

        Generally acknowledged to be the most powerful of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays and frequently performed by the best actors of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century, The Maid's Tragedy (1610-11) disappeared from the stage (except in a much-altered and very successful Victorian adaptation) until recent years, when major companies have rediscovered its appeal. In this fully annotated edition, the editor has given careful attention to the sense of the lines, the stage action and the verse. Many new emendations of textual errors, as well as improvements in stage directions and lineation, are either introduced or proposed. The introduction explores Beaumont and Fletcher's use of the three known sources (two of them previously neglected) for incidents in the play, gives the fullest available account of its stage history, and provides a sympathetic interpretation of the play as a romantic tragedy. ;

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        Literature & Literary Studies
        April 2010

        The Duchess of Malfi

        By John Webster

        by John Brown, David Bevington, John Brown, Richard Dutton, Alison Findlay, Helen Ostovich

        More widely studied and more frequently performed than ever before, John Webster's The Duchess of Malfi is here presented in an improved, accessible and throughly up-to-date edition. Starting with the authoritative Revels Plays edition of 1964, John Russell Brown has augmented the notes and collations, and casts new light on Webster's dramatic dialogue and on the stage action. An entirely new introduction encompasses a stage history from its well-documented early performances right through to recent productions in the twenty first century. The bibliography has also been expanded. Students, actors, directors, academics and theatre-goers will find here a reappraisal of Webster's artistry in the greatest age of English theatre. ;

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      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        July 1999

        The Shoemaker's Holiday

        by Thomas Dekker

        by David Bevington, Robert Smallwood, Stanley Wells, Richard Dutton, Alison Findlay, Helen Ostovich

        Thomas Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday is one of the most popular of Elizabethan plays, entertaining, racy and vivid in its characterisation. Revealing a vital portrait of Elizabethan London and the interaction of social classes within the city, its social commentary is on the whole optimistic, though darker tones are discernible. The play has the whole optimistic, though darker tones are discernible. The play has had a lively history of performance on both the professional and amateur stage; the roles of Simon and Madgy Eyre in particular have proved worthy vehicles for the talents of such performers as Sir Donald Wolfit and Dame Edith Evans, and a notable production was directed by Orson Wells. The editors offer a study of the text; a historical and critical introduction, which includes a study of the play's relationship with contemporary life and drama and of its place in Dekker's work; a stage history' a detailed commentary and a reprint of source materials. ;

      • Trusted Partner
        Literature & Literary Studies
        March 1999

        Eastward Ho!

        Chapman, Jonson and Marston

        by David Bevington, R. W. Van Fossen, Richard Dutton, Alison Findlay, Helen Ostovich

        Scholarly and detailed annotations. Provides a thorough sense of the plays background and content. Full and comprehensive introduction. ;

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