This is the finest critical edition of the two earliest comedies written by John Lyly. The text of "Sappho and Phao" is based on a first edition that was never before recognized as such. The text of "Campaspe" has also been take from early editions. The substantial introductions and commentary notes give a new view of Lyly's learning, style, wit and theatrical genius, along with the presentation of the battle of the sexes that offered such vital models for the early Shakespeare. The editors have worked to ensure that the two plays in this joint edition will compliment and illuminate each other. The plays are set in their historical, literary and theatrical context. With modernized spelling, explanations of difficult passages and extensive footnotes, this book will be a welcome addition for anyone interested in English Renaissance drama.

This volume in the Malone Society Reprints series consists of a photofacsimile of the Huntington Library copy of the first edition of Lyly's Sapho and Phao (1584). The volume is prefaced by a detailed bibliographical introduction, and includes the songs from the play, first published in 1632.

Engaging with fiction and history-and reading both genres as texts permeated with early modern anxieties, desires, and apprehensions-this collection scrutinizes the historical intersection of early modern European superstitions and English stage literature. Contributors analyze the cultural mechanisms that shape, preserve, and transmit beliefs. They investigate where superstitions come from and how they are sustained and communicated within early modern European society. It has been proposed by scholars that once enacted on stage and thus brought into contact with the literary-dramatic perspective, belief systems that had been preserved and reinforced by historical-literary texts underwent a drastic change. By highlighting the connection between historical-literary and literary-dramatic culture, this volume tests and explores the theory that performance of superstitions opened the way to disbelief.

An important re-evaluation of Elizabethan politics and Elizabeth's queenship in sixteenth-century England, Wales and Ireland.

The Masters of the Revels and Elizabeth I's Court Theatre offers a complete revision of established views of the structure and function of Elizabeth I's Revels Office, arguing that the revels essentially became a commercial enterprise, paid for by the ordinary Londoners.

John Lyly was undisputed master of the private theatre stage in the 1570s and 1580s. Lyly’s Endymion (1588) represents his famous Euphuistic style at its best and also gives us vintage Lyly as courtier and dramatist. In this love comedy, Lyly retells an ancient legend of the prolonged sleep of the man with whom the moon (Cynthia) fell in love. The fable is piquantly relevant to Queen Elizabeth and her exasperated if adoring courtiers. This edition makes a new and compelling argument for the relevance of Endymion to the threat of the Spanish Armada invasion of 1588 and to the role of the Earl of Oxford in England’s politics of that troubled decade. Full commentary is provided on every aspect of the play, including its philosophical allegory about the relation of the moon to mortal life on earth.