Ben Jonson

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...

Volpone, Or, The Fox is Ben Jonson’s great parable of greed, self-interest and inheritance. Using animal fable to satirise the wealthy and the greedy, it remains one of his most distinctive and compelling dramatic works. Jonson wrote the play for performance in 1606, and orchestrated its publication the following year. In it, the wealthy Venetian Volpone pretends to be on...

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...

First performed in 1610, The Alchemist was part of a quartet of comedies known for their wit, brilliant dialogue, and shrewd caricatures. Thought to be Jonson's best comedy, The Alchemist follows the satirical trail of deception when the gentleman Lovewit leaves his London home due to the plague, leaving behind his servant, Face, who endeavours to dupe all manner of...