Bringing together four of the most popular and widely studied of Ben Jonson's plays, this anthology focuses on the city comedies for which Jonson is best known today: The Alchemist (edited by Elizabeth Cook), Volpone (edited by Robert N. Watson), Bartholmew Fair (edited by G.R. Hibbard) and Epicoene or The Silent Woman (edited by Roger Holdsworth). Today Jonson's works are widely considered to be amongst the best produced in his period. The new introduction by Robert N. Watson explores the plays in the context of early modern theatre, culture and politics, as well as providing a guide to the language, characters and themes. On-page commentary notes gloss the text in greater detail, making this the ideal edition for study and classroom use.

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.

Included in this volume are: "The Alchemist," "Catiline His Conspiracy," "Bartholomew Fair," and "The Devil Is an Ass."

This edition of Ben Jonson's four comedies, Volpone, Epicoene, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, places the works in the popular history and culture of the times, (1605xxx;1614), and surveys the influences, classical and contemporary on Jonson as a playwright. Brief introductions to each play discuss local settings, sources, theatre history and suggest further reading, and the introduction includes a biography of Jonson, and a full chronology of the plays and masques.

A volume containing three of Ben Jonson's greatest plays: Sejanus, Volpone and Epicoene.

This new guide to the English renaissance's most erudite and yet most street-wise dramatist strongly asserts the theatrical brilliance of his greatest plays in performance, then and now.The book integrates all of Jonson's major plays into the milieu of the turbulent years which produced them, and analyses the way each work examines the issues and challenges of those years: money, power, sex, crime, identity, gender, the theatre itself. It offers a lucid guide to the competing critical views of a playwright who is far more than the obverse of his friend and rival William Shakespeare, and it explains in detail how the undoubted power and energy of these plays in modern performance should be the touchstone of their quality to both critic and reader. The plays discussed include the early Comedies, the Roman Tragedies (Sejanus and Catiline), Volpone, Epicoene, The Alchemist, Bartholomew Fair and The Devil is an Ass.