Series: Arden Early Modern Drama

The Duchess of Malfi is one of the major tragedies of the early modern period and remains popular in the theatre as well as in the classroom. The story of the Duchess's secret marriage and the cruel revenge of her brothers has fascinated and appalled audiences for centuries. This new Arden edition offers readers a comprehensive, illustrated introduction to the...

Philaster is a tragicomedy by Beaumont and Fletcher which has much in common with Shakespeare's late plays such as The Winter's Tale. Set in a fictionalised Sicily, it has the complex plot of love, disguise, and the threat of death much loved by early modern theatre-goers. This edition provides an authoritative, modernised text by a leading scholar with detailed on-page...

A major new edition of Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy, an outstanding landmark of Elizabethan drama. In its time, it quickly became a box office success and probably inspired Shakespeare to write Hamlet, as it contains a ghost, murders that demand revenge and a hero that hesitates and contemplates suicide. As a revenge tragedy, it set up the salient features...

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 Dutch Courtesan is a riotous tragicomedy that explores the delights and perils afforded by Jacobean London. While Freevill, an educated young Englishman and the play's nominal hero, frolics in the city's streets, taverns and brothels, Franceschina, his cast-off mistress and the Dutch courtesan of the play's title, laments his betrayal and plots revenge. Juxtaposing Franceschina's vulnerable financial position against...

The Tragedy of Mariam, the Fair Queen of Jewry is a Jacobean closet drama by Elizabeth Tanfield Cary. First published in 1613, it was the first work by a woman to be published under her real name. Never performed during Cary's lifetime, and apparently never intended for performance, the Senecan revenge tragedy tells the story of Mariam, the second wife...

Adultery, intrigue, murder, revenge: the densely-packed plot of The White Devil touches on topics that are representative of the atmosphere of Jacobean tragedy. Part tragedy, part satire of a corrupt political world, the play explores the relations of the powerful to the disempowered; the opportunities and constraints of women trying to survive in a male-dominated society; the complex distribution of...

A fully modernised, annotated edition of Tis Pity She's a Whore, Ford's controversial tragedy of sibling incest and complex revenge plots. As with all Arden editions, detailed on-page commentary notes help the student understand and appreciate the play both in performance and as a many-layered literary text. The lengthy, illustrated introduction offers a wealth of critical and contextual information about...

Vivid and daring in Marlowe’s time and ours, Edward II has captivated generations of readers, audiences, and performers with its evocative portrayal of passionate friendship, kingly power, and brutal retribution. Leading scholar Jeffrey Masten’s new edition of Marlowe’s great tragedy distils its importance for the history of queer sexuality, historical drama, and modern performance alike. Drawing on new research into...

Based on the true story of the murder of Thomas Arden by his wife, her lover and accomplices in 1551, Arden of Faversham is one of the earliest domestic tragedies and a play which has continued to thrill audiences since its first staging. This comprehensive edition situates the play in its social, cultural and political context while exploring its performance...

The most studied of Thomas Heywood's plays, A Woman Killed With Kindness explores the boundaries of marital punishment and the moral weight of mercy. This major new edition of this startling domestic tragedy offers the standard, depth, and range associated with all Arden editions. The on-page commentary notes explain the language, references, and staging issues posed by the text while...

Everyman and Mankind are morality plays that mark the transition from the medieval period to the early modern era, with their focus on the individual. Everyman follows a man's journey towards death and his efforts to secure a life thereafter, whilst Mankind depicts a man battling with temptation and sin, often with great humour. Both texts are modernised here and...

A fast-paced whirlwind of fantasy and mockery confined to a single room, The Alchemist offers a witty culmination of Jonson's experiments with city comedy. The play has been widely recognised as one of the most impressive achievements of the period's theatre; Coleridge famously described it as one of the three most perfect plots in literature. Yet it is a notoriously...

A major new edition of this much-studied play offering the standard, depth and range associated with all Arden editions. The on-page commentary notes explain the language, references and staging issues posed by the text, while the lengthy, illustrated introduction offers a lively overview of the play's historical, performance and critical contexts. This is the ideal edition for study and performance....

Thomas Dekker’s singular comic drama, The Shoemakers’ Holiday, moves through the urban landscape of 16th-century apprenticeships and artisan production in this tale of thwarted marriages and class division. Simon Eyre and his rags-to-riches journey to becoming the city’s Lord Mayor embroils a host of lively characters who find themselves in the generative setting of the shoemakers’ workshop. Whether it be...

On 19 April 1621, a woman named Elizabeth Sawyer was hanged at Tyburn. Her story was on the bookstalls within days and within weeks was adapted for the stage as The Witch of Edmonton. The devil stalks Edmonton in the shape of a large black dog and, just as Elizabeth Sawyer makes her demonic pact, the newlywed Frank Thorney enters...

Vivid and daring in Marlowe’s time and ours, Edward II has captivated generations of readers, audiences, and performers with its evocative portrayal of passionate friendship, kingly power, and brutal retribution. Leading scholar Jeffrey Masten’s new edition of Marlowe’s great tragedy distils its importance for the history of queer sexuality, historical drama, and modern performance alike. Drawing on new research into...