One of the great Renaissance playwrights, Middleton wrote tragediesessentially different from either Marlowe's or Shakespeare's, beingwittier than the former and more grittily ironic than the latter. Thegenre of 'citizen tragedy' came into its own in the eighteenth century, but Middleton can claim to have created it: Bianca, wife of a middlingcommercial agent, arouses the lust of the Duke of Florence and becomeshis mistress, first secretly, then openly and finally, after herhusband has been seduced by the scheming Lady Livia and stabbed byLivia's brother, the Duke's wife. Livia plots her...

Dryden's audiences in 1671, both aristocratic and middle-class, wouldhave been quick to respond to the themes of disputed royal succession, Francophilia and loyalty among subjects in his most successfultragicomedy. In the tragic plot, written in verse, young Leonidas hasto struggle to assert his place as the rightful heir to the throne ofSicily and to the hand of the usurper's daughter. In the comic plot, written in prose, two fashionable couples (much more at home in Londondrawing-rooms than at the Sicilian court) play at switching partners inthe 'modern' style. The introduction of this...

'A silent and loving woman is a gift of the lord'

This 'excellent comedy of affliction' enjoyed enormous prestige for more than a century after its first performance: for John Dryden it had 'the greatest and most noble construction of any pure unmixed comedy in any language'. Its title signals Jonson's satiric and complex concern with gender: the play asks not only 'what should a man do?', but how should men and women behave, both as fit examples of their sex, and to one another? The characters furnish a cross-section of wrong answers, enabling Jonson to create riotous entertainment...

'I know the trade: I learned it when I was in Wittenberg'

Thus speaks Lacy, the gentleman who disguises himself as a simple shoemaker in order to win his true love, the grocer's daughter Rose. The Shoemaker's Holiday is one of the most engaging citizen comedies of the 17th century. Written and first performed at much the same time as Hamlet, it has an unexpected affinity with Shakespeare's tragedy: both feature a leading character who has spent time in Wittenberg, where he has learned something that has changed him. But whereas Hamlet's Wittenberg philosophy...

This completely new edition of The Recruiting Officer contains a freshly-edited play text, with new annotations, in modern spelling. Tiffany Stern's comprehensive and engaging introduction discusses the author's career and gives a history of the play including its staging, critical interpretation, date and sources, putting it its context of the late Restoration and illuminating its theatrical vivacity.

Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer is set in Shrewsbury in 1704 and describes what happens in a country town when the army come to stay. With cross-dressing and confusion...

Written in 1728, John Gay's opera caricatures society, marriage and Italian operatic style in this comic satire which is considered revolutionary because it took on poverty and corruption as its subject as told by the thieves, prostitutes and villains of the slums and prisons of 18th century London. The lyrics were set to famous songs the day making it hugely popular with audiences and a radical departure from traditional opera. Bertolt Brech and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera is based on this work.

In the story Peachum is horrified to learn of their daughter's secret...

This 'lamentable and true tragedy', as it is announced on its title page, dramatises a domestic murder of the sort that nowadays scandalises and thrills the readers of tabloid newspapers. Although the title advertises 'the great malice and dissimulation of a wicked woman' and her 'unsatiable desire of filthie lust', the unknown playwright with great dramatic skill and psychological insight manages to balance the motivations of all the main characters. Thomas Arden, one of the rapacious landlords so reviled in mid-Elizabethan social drama, was murdered at his own house in Faversham, Kent,...

Charting the meteoric rise and fall of Joan of Arc and her mission to drive the English from France, Shaw's Saint Joan draws directly on the medieval records to cut through the sentiment that characterized previous literary treatments of her story. A powerful example of a new kind of history play, its staging of dissent and social constraint, personal responsibility and female assertion, as well as fervent adherence to a cause, gave it a powerful modernity in its own day and continuing resonance in ours. Acclaimed internationally, this instant modern classic propelled Shaw...