The past generation has been an extraordinarily active one in medieval drama scholarship; our appreciation of the range of medieval drama has been significantly broadened, and our understanding of certain medieval genres—most notably, biblical drama—has been fundamentally altered. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature has been widely praised for the degree to which it has taken this scholarship into account in its selection of and presentation of medieval plays. Now Broadview launches a new anthology that takes those plays as its base while expanding very substantially beyond them to represent the full range of drama in English (and, where strong connections exist, in French, Latin, Cornish, and Welsh as well) through to 1576. In all, over forty plays are included. Each work has been fully annotated and is prefaced by a substantial introduction. In many cases the language is to some extent modernized in order to make the plays more accessible to readers today.

English drama between the late fifteenth century and the late sixteenth centuries is as diverse as it is engaging; this anthology brings together eighteen of the most interesting and important dramatic works from the period. The plays have been chosen to give a broad view of the drama produced in Tudor England. They testify to the eclectic tastes of sixteenth-century audiences, ranging from morality plays (Mankind, Everyman), to comedies inspired by the Roman plays of Terence and Plautus (Ralph Roister Doister), to tragedies inspired by the plays of Seneca (Gorboduc, Cambises). In later plays, morality plots rub shoulders with slapstick comic business (The Longer Thou Livest The More Fool Thou Art, The Three Ladies of London), and classical gods intervene in the affairs of England’s regions (Gallathea). While some of the plays offer pure entertainment, others have a clear political agenda. King Johan is presented as a prototype for English resistance to Rome’s Catholicism; Gorboduc’s decision to abdicate and divide his kingdom highlights the vexed question of the English succession under a childless queen. Other plays comment more obliquely on contemporary events. Play of the Four Elements reflects on England’s nascent maritime expeditions to the New World, while The Three Ladies of London comments topically on immigrant overcrowding in England’s port towns, and the dangers of England’s trade in the Mediterranean. Some plays push the boundaries of what the theatre can do in staging violence (Cambises) and questioning gender roles (Gallathea). Designed for undergraduate use, the anthology includes extensive explanatory annotations and a substantial introduction to each play; spelling and punctuation have been partially modernized in the interests of making the texts more accessible to students. In all this, the anthology follows principles similar to those developed for Christina M. Fitzgerald’s and John T. Sebastian’s Broadview Anthology of Medieval Drama; several of the plays from that anthology are also included here, while the rest have been newly edited for this volume, under the supervision of General Editor Alan Stewart.

Few medieval plays in English have attracted as much twenty-first-century interest as the Digby Mary Magdalene, an early-fifteenth-century drama that, as Chester Scoville puts it, is “probably the most spectacular of the late medieval English plays.” This new edition presents a modernized text of the play, with extensive annotation (both marginal glosses and explanatory footnotes), an insightful introduction, and a helpful selection of background contextual materials.

In all six of its volumes The Broadview Anthology of British Literature presents British literature in a truly distinctive light. Fully grounded in sound literary and historical scholarship, the anthology takes a fresh approach to many canonical authors, and includes a wide selection of work by lesser-known writers. The anthology also provides wide-ranging coverage of the worldwide connections of British literature, and it pays attention throughout to issues of race, gender, class, and sexual orientation. It includes comprehensive introductions to each period, providing in each case an overview of the historical and cultural as well as the literary background. It features accessible and engaging headnotes for all authors, extensive explanatory annotations, and an unparalleled number of illustrations and contextual materials. Innovative, authoritative and comprehensive, The Broadview Anthology of British Literature has established itself as a leader in the field. The full anthology comprises six bound volumes, together with an extensive website component; the latter has been edited, annotated, and designed according to the same high standards as the bound book component of the anthology, and is accessible by using the passcode obtained with the purchase of one or more of the bound volumes. For the third edition of this volume a number of changes have been made. The Old English material has been substantially revised and expanded, including new translations by Roy Liuzza of “Deor,” “Wulf and Eadwacer,” and “The Battle of Brunanburh.” A selection from Adrienne Williams Boyarin’s new translation of “The Miracles of the Virgin” will be included, along with Sian Echard’s translation of selections from Y Gododdin. Matthieu Boyd’s translation of the first two branches of the Mabinogi is also new to this edition, together with several Early Irish lyrics. The “Love and Marriage” Contexts section has been expanded to include additional material by Christine de Pizan and excerpts from Holy Maidenhood, and the “Religious and Spiritual Life” Contexts section now includes excerpts from Wycliffite writings. The selection of material by Sir Thomas Malory has also been substantially revised and expanded. In addition, the online component of the anthology includes several new selections, including “The Gifts of Men,” “The Fortunes of Men,” “The Feast of Bricriu,” material by Robert Henryson, and a broader selection of medieval drama.

The York Corpus Christi Play as we know it consists of 47 surviving individual plays or “pageants,” 27 of which are included in this volume; together, these 27 plays represent the cycle’s core narrative of creation, fall, and salvation. This new edition offers extensive annotation (both marginal glosses and explanatory footnotes), an illuminating introduction, and a helpful selection of background contextual materials.