This selection contains the three finest plays of the Stuart dramatist John Ford. The Broken Heart is a classical tragedy of suffering; 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, Ford's best-known play and one still frequently performed, is a tragic story of limitless ambition and social rivalry expressed in sexual terms; Perkin Warbeck is the last great successor to the history plays of Shakespeare. Together they exemplify the unique tone of Ford's drama, in which passion and gravity are united by a playwright with a poetic sense of theatre. This is the only one-volume selection of Ford's plays now available. The texts are modernised and equipped with notes explaining unfamiliar language and historical references. A general introduction gives a brief biography and bibliography; individual introductions deal with the sources and stage history of each play. Longer notes at the back of the book discuss points of staging and interpretation, and there is a full textual apparatus which makes this edition useful for the scholar as well as the student.

The plays of John Webster are read and seen more widely today than at any time since they were written - provoking much disagreement in the process. The continuing debate about his political, religious and philosophical attitudes, his formal skills and the importance of his plays for understanding the changing culture in which they were written, make Webster the most controversial of all Jacobean dramatists. This volume includes freshly collated, fully annotated and cross-referenced texts of his three best-known plays, together with introductions and a useful critical bibliography.