The essays in this third volume of The Penguin History of Literature aim to give the modern reader a sense of the many contexts within which drama exists. By presenting different aspects of the drama of the period, a wider perspective is gained. What distinguishes drama from other forms of literature? In answering this question Glynne Wickham looks at the essential context of stage and staging, from the beginnings of English drama to the Jacobean playhouse. Brian Morris's survey of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama provides an incisive overview and background to the chapters on the great dramatists of the period. Written by leading scholars in their field, these essays explore the work of Marlowe, Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, and the tragedies of Webster, Tourneur and Middleton, each within its own individual context. The concluding chapter by John Bernard gives an account of drama from the Restoration until 1710. Published in ten volumes, The Penguin History of Literature is a critical survey of English and American literature. Each volume is a collection of original essays specially commissioned, from the Anglo-Saxons to the present.