The Records of Early English Drama volumes make available historical transcripts that provide evidence of early English drama, music, ceremonial, dance, and other forms of communal public entertainment in Britain before 1642, together with the necessary interpretive introductions and notes to explicate the materials for the reader. Shropshire, in two volumes, is the eleventh publication in the series. In the introduction Alan Somerset surveys the social and economic history of each major borough and provides a commentary on the major issues raised in the documents. He discusses travelling performers routes, the places they performed, and the remarkable public exhibitions of high-wire artists, camels, bears, and giants. The records for this county are rich and varied, providing new detail about local playing and festivities. From Shrewsbury for example, comes the complete documentation of a unique, semi-circular outdoor amphitheatre. The documents reveal much - from robbery and riots - to the sometimes acrimonious disputes that show the growing Puritan opposition to sports, which attempted to combat an equally stubborn affection for traditional customs. These records are an invaluable addition to the scholarship of early drama, establishing as they do part of the total context of the great drama of Shakespeare, his predecessors, and his contemporaries.

“A funny, revealing, Ball Four–like romp through mid-seventies baseball” from the longtime sports columnist and author of The Last Real Season (Booklist). You think your team is bad? In this “disastrously hilarious” work on one of the most tortured franchises in baseball, one reporter discovers that nine innings can feel like an eternity (USA Today). In early 1973, gonzo sportswriter Mike Shropshire agreed to cover the Texas Rangers for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, not realizing that the Rangers were arguably the worst team in baseball history. Seasons in Hell is a riotous, candid, irreverent behind-the-scenes account in the tradition of The Bronx Zoo and Ball Four, following the Texas Rangers from Whitey Herzog’s reign in 1973 through Billy Martin’s tumultuous tenure. Offering wonderful perspectives on dozens of unique (and likely never-to-be-seen-again) baseball personalities, Seasons in Hell recounts some of the most extreme characters ever to play the game and brings to life the no-holds-barred culture of major league baseball in the mid-seventies. “The single funniest sports book I have ever read.”—Don Imus “The locker-room shenanigans of a lousy team of the 1970s.”—Publishers Weekly