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ELIZABETHAN DRAMATISTS

EXCLUDING SHAKESPEARE

Selected Plays

BY

LYLY, PEELE, GREENE, MARLOWE, KYD, CHAPMAN, JONSON
DEKKER, MARSTON, HEYWOOD, BEAUMONT, FLETCHER
WEBSTER, MIDDLETON, MASSINGER, FORD, SHIRLEY

EDITED FROM THE ORIGINAL QUARTOS AND FOLIOS
WITH NOTES, BIOGRAPHIES, AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES

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COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY WILLIAM ALLAN NEILSON

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

Renéral hi

12-10-3

REFACE

e plays in this volume has been twofold: first, to present f the most important of Shakespeare's contemporaries, so own writings, they might afford a view of the development gh its most brilliant period; secondly, to present, as far as it the most distinguished plays of that period, regarded merely their intrinsic value. It is clear that these two purposes could combined; but it is hoped that each has been in good measure due sacrifice of the other, and that the interests of the academic studeral reader have been fairly harmonized.

525

atment of the text, the same principles have been followed as in the editor's Shakespeare's works in the Cambridge Poets Series. Each play has been printed the most authentic text accessible, and emendations have been adopted sparingly. Modern stage directions, and divisions into scenes and acts which do not appear in the original editions, have been distinguished by square brackets; modern notes of place at the beginning of scenes have been relegated to the footnotes; and indications given by the early copies of the authors' intentions with regard to the reading of the metre have been carefully preserved, especially in the matter of elided vowels. It is probable that, in the case of most of the present plays, the final -ed of verbs was intended to be pronounced as a separate syllable whenever it is spelled in full. The spelling and punctuation have been modernized throughout, except when the older spelling implied a different pronunciation. The footnotes give the most important variant readings, and explanations of obsolete expressions; and the Additional Notes at the end of the volume supply information regard to the circumstances of publication, date, and sources of each play. In accc 656 with the plan of the Chief Poets Series, to which the volume belongs, there have. 690 added concise biographical sketches and a selected bibliography of the dramatic w each author. In view of the full bibliographies printed recently in Professor Sch Elizabethan Drama and in The Cambridge History of English Literature, vols. v has not seemed advisable to attempt to give exhaustive bibliographies at the e reducing the number of dramas. All collected editions of the dramatists cone however, mentioned; all separate editions of the plays here printed; a com each author's dramas, with the dates of the original editions; and a selection important critical and biographical articles and books. Attention may also b complete index of all the dramatis personae who have speaking parts, and to songs.

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In the selection of the thirty plays to be included I have received valuable adv many friends and colleagues on the faculties of many colleges and universities; so 1279 that a complete acknowledgment would be impracticable, a partial one invidious. For a such help I am deeply grateful. I have also received courtesies from the authorities of

the Boston Public

which have enabled.

number of the origina

Printing from so grea

found it difficult to preserv

failed of accuracy. Any correc

who use the volume will be warn.

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, Janua

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