{"title":"Plays By Renaissance And Restoration Dramatists","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"selected-plays-of-john-ford-book-colin-gibson-9780521295451","title":"The Selected Plays of John Ford","description":"This selection contains the three finest plays of the Stuart dramatist John Ford. The Broken Heart is a classical tragedy of suffering; 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, Ford's best-known play and one still frequently performed, is a tragic story of limitless ambition and social rivalry expressed in sexual terms; Perkin Warbeck is the last great successor to the history plays of Shakespeare. Together they exemplify the unique tone of Ford's drama, in which passion and gravity are united by a playwright with a poetic sense of theatre. This is the only one-volume selection of Ford's plays now available. The texts are modernised and equipped with notes explaining unfamiliar language and historical references. A general introduction gives a brief biography and bibliography; individual introductions deal with the sources and stage history of each play. Longer notes at the back of the book discuss points of staging and interpretation, and there is a full textual apparatus which makes this edition useful for the scholar as well as the student.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49557557117201,"sku":"GOR005003774","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49664031621393,"sku":"GOR006648504","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51503803859217,"sku":"GOR014306178","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52147952320785,"sku":"NLS9780521295451","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0521295459.jpg?v=1751007870"},{"product_id":"plays-of-cyril-tourneur-book-george-parfitt-9780521292351","title":"The Plays of Cyril Tourneur","description":"The two plays which make up this volume are of different quality. While no one would claim that The Atheist's Tragedy is a masterpiece, it is an important play because in it the exhortation 'Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord' is acted upon with unusual consistency, and because stringent `puritan' moral attitudes are dramatised in the context of traditional revenge themes. The Revenger's Tragedy, on the other hand, is a masterpiece; a satirical tragedy with farce structure and poetic vision focused upon the vice and corruption of the imagined Italy of the Jacobean period. Its bleak view of humanity links the play with the strongly satirical theatre of the early seventeenth century, showing the dramatist's affinity with Jonson and Marston. Although The Atheist's Tragedy and The Revenger's Tragedy are commonly linked in readers' minds, there has 'been much disagreement since the end of the nineteenth century about the authorship of The Revenger's Tragedy. The issue is fully aired in the Introduction to the volume, the editor's view being that the play is best regarded as anonymous; however, the two plays, are printed together here to enable readers to compare them as discussions of the morality of revenge.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49621400486161,"sku":"GOR002745534","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51166102946065,"sku":"GOR002785744","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52146821955857,"sku":"NLS9780521292351","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52735409783057,"sku":"NIN9780521292351","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0521292352.jpg?v=1750698211"},{"product_id":"selected-plays-of-thomas-middleton-book-david-l-frost-9780521292368","title":"The Selected Plays of Thomas Middleton","description":"T. S. Eliot said of the Jacobean dramatist Thomas Middleton (1580–1627) that 'he wrote one tragedy which more than any other play except those of Shakespeare has a profound and permanent moral value and horror': Middleton has increasingly been recognised as one of the most important, if not the most important, Jacobean dramatist after Shakespeare himself. This volume contains The Changeling (of which Eliot gave so high an estimate), together with Middleton's other surviving tragedy, Women Beware Women, his best comedy, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, and a more light-hearted early play, A Mad World, My  Masters. Though Middleton is typical of many university-trained writers of the period who eked out a living in popular entertainment, his work has a cold satiric stance, a grimly determinist flavour and a savage economy which make it unique. He wrote plays for the boys' companies in the early 1600s and later for Shakespeare's own company, the King's Men, but seems never to have established himself as more than a jobbing dramatist.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49629272506641,"sku":"GOR005361092","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52146051776785,"sku":"NLS9780521292368","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0521292360.jpg?v=1750879864"},{"product_id":"plays-of-william-wycherley-book-peter-holland-9780521298803","title":"The Plays of William Wycherley","description":"Mr Wycherley is universally allowed the first place among the English comic poets who have writ since Ben Jonson. His Plain-Dealer is the best comedy that ever was composed in any language.' Yet in spite of the extreme praise many of his contemporaries accorded to his work, William Wycherley (1641-1715) is now only remembered for one play, The Country Wife. Even though The Country Wife is frequently performed by both amateur and professional companies (including a production at the National Theatre in 1977), Wycherley's three other plays, Love in a Wood, The Gentleman Dancing-Master and The Plain-Dealer, are rarely read and even more rarely performed. But Wycherley's satire is as sharp now as ever and his revelation of the follies and crimes of his society is still both wickedly funny and savagely perceptive.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49968743514385,"sku":"GOR005491510","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51093417722129,"sku":"GOR007493129","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52131043082513,"sku":"NLS9780521298803","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0521298806.jpg?v=1751326291"},{"product_id":"selected-plays-of-philip-massinger-book-colin-gibson-9780521292436","title":"The Selected Plays of Philip Massinger","description":"This volume provides a selection of four plays by Philip Massinger who, from 1625 to 1640, replaced John Fletcher as principal dramatist for the King's Men, the chief London theatre company for more than forty years. The selection consists of two of Massinger's finest comedies, A New Way to Pay Old Debts and The City Madam, and his two best known tragedies, The Duke of Milan and The Roman Actor. These plays have interested readers, scholars and critics for hundreds of years, and although the tragedies have seldom been performed since the seventeenth century, the comedies have a long stage tradition. A New Way to Pay Old Debts has been performed more often than any other play by Shakespeare's contemporaries, and together with The City Madam continues to delight modern audiences.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50051950575889,"sku":"GOR007310748","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52131070378257,"sku":"NLS9780521292436","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":53420955992337,"sku":"CIN0521292433G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53562437402897,"sku":"NGR9780521292436","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0521292433.jpg?v=1751072523"},{"product_id":"selected-plays-of-ben-jonson-volume-1-book-ben-jonson-9780521292481","title":"The Selected Plays of Ben Jonson: Volume 1","description":"This volume contains three of Ben Jonson's greatest plays - Sejanus (1603), Volpone (1606) and Epicoene, or The Silent Woman (1609). Sejanus, an experimental tragedy written in the classical manner, was labelled a seditious work at the time of its first production and embroiled Jonson with the Privy Council. Volpone is the first of his mature comedies, with a remarkable cast of Venetian legacy-hunters: using verse of mock-heroic grandeur Jonson created in the character of Volpone one of his most flamboyant and cynical swindlers. Epicoene is a brilliant farce which makes fun of the pretensions of the courtiers, wits and bluestockings of contemporary London. Jonson was unique in his own time for the close personal supervision he gave to the publication of his plays. As a result, the early published texts of the plays in this volume carry an unusually high degree of authorial intention. In preparing this modernised edition an attempt has been made to conserve something of the author's highly individual treatment of names, verb forms and punctuation.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":50155051090193,"sku":"GOR006258396","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52331350786321,"sku":"NLS9780521292481","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0521292484.jpg?v=1751072523"},{"product_id":"selected-plays-of-john-marston-book-macdonald-pearman-jackson-9780521292474","title":"The Selected Plays of John Marston","description":"This edition brings five of Marston's most interesting plays together in a readable and helpful form. They are collected with modern spelling, full commentaries, textual notes and introductions, in texts newly edited from the original quartos. A survey of criticism of Marston is included. The edition of Sophonisba (a play highly praised by T. S. Eliot) is the first modernised text to appear in one hundred years. Another textual innovation is the relegation to an appendix of Webster's obtrusive additions to The Malcontent. Marston's plays have enjoyed popular revivals in English theatres over the last decade, and the authors' commentary is designed to alert readers to theatrical effects. The playwright's language is elucidated here far more fully than in any other collection.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51513507905809,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51513508004113,"sku":"GOR002707187","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52148110000401,"sku":"NLS9780521292474","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0521292476.jpg?v=1751167206"},{"product_id":"comedies-of-william-congreve-book-william-congreve-9780521289320","title":"The Comedies of William Congreve","description":"The career of William Congreve as comic dramatist was brief but highly successful. From the beginning he showed a useful knack for cultivating influential literary friends and for giving audiences what they were sure to like. 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Aware of changing tastes in his audience, and annoyed by critical squabbles over the question of morality in his plays, he retired at the age of thirty to the life of a gentleman of leisure.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":52131101802769,"sku":"NLS9780521289320","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52391560937745,"sku":"GOR006100674","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":52526985052433,"sku":"GOR004158822","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53016926716177,"sku":"GOR009919180","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780521289320.jpg?v=1757507613"},{"product_id":"selected-plays-of-ben-jonson-volume-2-book-ben-jonson-9780521318426","title":"The Selected Plays of Ben Jonson: Volume 2","description":"This volume brings together four of Ben Jonson's plays, two of his major works - The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fair (1614) and two from his later oeuvre: The New Inn (1629) and A Tale of a Tub (1633). The Alchemist is a major satire on folly and greed, brilliantly plotted and dazzling in its use of language. Bartholomew Fair, possibly Jonson's greatest achievement, reveals a panoramic depiction of London society. The New Inn and A Tale of a Tub suggest a different Jonson, exploring new forms and writing from a profoundly modified perspective. In The New Inn, a romantic comedy overlaid with an atmospheric melancholy and an ethical urgency, Jonson engages seriously for the first time with the conventions of non-satiric comedy. A Tale of a Tub, a riotous farce set in the early years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, is now widely regarded as a nostalgic Jonsonian pastiche of Elizabethan popular drama. In recent criticism, Jonson's later career has been undergoing considerable reassessment, and this edition is the first that attempts to take this new view of Jonson into account. 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