Also included are three masques: Mercury Vindicated from the Alchemist at Court, Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue, and new to the Second Edition The Masque of Blackness, Jonson's first masque and one that deals with issues of interest to contemporary culture. Each text includes expanded annotations. Jonson on His Work collects statements by the author on plays and on poetry taken from some of the plays, from Discoveries, and from Conversations with William Drummond of Hawthornden. Contemporary Readers on Jonson includes tributes and poems about the author and his work. A new section "Backgrounds and Sources" includes selections from texts that helped shaped the dramatist's vision. Criticism includes twelve essays nine of them new to the Second Edition by Jonas A. Barish, Robert C. Evans, Anne Barton, John Dryden, Robert Watson, Edward B. Partridge, Ian Donaldson, Richard Harp, D. J. Gordon, Stephen Orgel, John Mulryan, and Leah S. Marcus."

This edition of Ben Jonson's four middle comedies places the works in the popular history and culture of the times, 1605-1614, and surveys the influences, both classical and contemporary, on Jonson as a playwright. On-the-page annotations recreate the audiences perception of the plays as performances by commenting on the stage-directions, the self-conscious theatricality of characters and scenes, and the vivid colloquialisms of early modern London that give the dialogue a heightened dimension of realism.
Brief introductions to each play discuss the local settings, sources, theatre history and further readings. The general introduction includes a biography of Jonson, a chronology of the plays and masques, and separate essays on each play, dealing particularly with Jonson's satirical treatments of trends and shams of the day, whether political, social, commercial, or spiritual.

Originally published in 1928, this book presents the text of The Alchemist by Ben Jonson. An editorial introduction is included, along with extensive notes. Spelling and punctuation are occasionally modernised and a few passages are omitted, but aside from this the text of William Gifford's 1816 edition is followed. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in English theatre and early modern literature.

Drama Classics: The World's Great Plays at a Great Little Price Face, Subtle and Dol Common are three rogues intent on conning the gullible out of their money. Setting up a quack-doctor's practice in Lovewit's house they promise miraculous services that cost their customers dear. Everything goes swimmingly, until Lovewit returns and the three turn against each other. Ben Jonson's classic comedy The Alchemist was first performed by the King's Men in 1610. This edition of the play in the Nick Hern Books Drama Classics series is edited by Simon Trussler, with an introduction by Colin Counsell.

Originally published in 1929 as part of the Cambridge Plain Texts series, this volume contains Ben Jonson's incomplete play The Sad Shepherd, or A Tale of Robin Hood. The play first appeared in the second volume of Jonson's works in 1641 and the text for this edition was largely based on that version, with some modernisation of spelling and punctuation. A short editorial introduction is also included. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Jonson and early-modern drama.

First published in 1905, this edition of Ben Jonson's poetic collection Underwoods provides the original text from 1640 in its totality. This heterogeneous collection is notable for containing 'A Celebration of Charis', Jonson's most extended effort at love poetry, together with numerous other points of interest. Beautifully presented, this edition will be of value to anyone with an interest in Jonson's poetry and Renaissance literature in general.

The author's highly individualized treatment of names, verb forms and punctuation is preserved in this volume of three of his greatest plays--Sejanus (1603), Volpone (1606) and Epicoene, or The Silent Woman (1609).

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. Dr Butler's edition is full and informative in its annotations and survey of criticisms to date, and cautiously respectful of Jonsonian punctuation.

The sharpest, funniest comedy about money and morals in the 17th century is still the sharpest and funniest about those things in the 21st. The full play text is accompanied by incisive commentary notes which communicate the devastating comic energy of Volpone's satire. The introduction provides a firm grounding in the play's social and literary contexts, demonstrates how careful close-reading can expand your enjoyment of the comedy, shows the relevance of Jonson's critique to our modern economic systems, and provides a clear picture of how the main relationships in the play function on the page and stage. Supplemented by a plot summary and annotated bibliography, it is ideal for students of Jonson, city comedy and early modern drama.

Drama Classics: The World's Great Plays at a Great Little Price Ben Jonson's comedy, one of the finest of the Jacobean era. Volpone is a Venetian aristocrat, a loveable rogue who enjoys the cunning pursuit of wealth more than money itself. Pretending to be mortally ill, he watches as his greedy neighbours swarm around him with expensive gifts in the hope of inheriting his fortune. Volpone was premiered by the King's Men at the Globe Theatre, London, in 1606. This edition of Volpone, in the Nick Hern Books Drama Classics series, is edited by R.B.Parker, and introduced by Colin Counsell.

The Alchemist is set during a plague epidemic in the Liberty of Blackfriars in 1610 - and was first performed on tour in 1610 by the company whose London home at Blackfriars was temporarily closed due to a plague epidemic. The play is a sublimely accomplished satirical farce about people's diverse dreams of self-refinement: they all want to transform themselves into something nobler, richer, more powerful, more virile, just as base metal was supposed to be transformed into gold in the alchemical process. During their master's absence from the house, the con-artists Face, Subtle and Doll Common dupe a series of 'customers' whose greed leads them to believe in the existence of the fabled Philosopher's Stone. As their equipment boils over and blows up in the offstage kitchen, so their plot heats up and is exploded by the sceptical Surly and the arrival of their master - who quietly pockets their proceeds and marries the rich widow to boot. The lively introduction focuses on the play as a comedy about swindlers and characters on the margins of society. It highlights Jonson's cratft as a dramatist and his masterful use of language, building into the play all actors and directors need to know about its characters and action. With helpful on-page commentary notes, this student edition also discusses the play in its theatrical and historical context and traces its connections to modern theatre, bringing its farcical comedy vividly to life.

'A silent and loving woman is a gift of the lord'

This 'excellent comedy of affliction' enjoyed enormous prestige for more than a century after its first performance: for John Dryden it had 'the greatest and most noble construction of any pure unmixed comedy in any language'. Its title signals Jonson's satiric and complex concern with gender: the play asks not only 'what should a man do?', but how should men and women behave, both as fit examples of their sex, and to one another? The characters furnish a cross-section of wrong answers, enabling Jonson to create riotous entertainment out of lack, loss and disharmony, to the point of denying the straightfowardly festive conclusion which audiences at comedies normally expect. Much of the comic vitality arises from a degeneration of language, which Jonson called 'the instrument of society', into empty chatter or furious abuse, and from a plot which is a series of lies and betrayals (the hero lies to everyone and Jonson lies to the audience). The central figure is a man named Morose, who hates noise yet lives in the centre of London, and who, because of his decision to marry a woman he supposes to be silent, exposes himself to a fantastic cacophony of voices, male, female and - epicene.

This student edition contains a lengthy Introduction with background on the author, date and sources, theme, critical interpretation and stage history.