The first decade of the Jacobean age witnessed a sudden profusion of comedies satirizing city life; among these were comedies by Ben Jonson, John Marston and Thomas Middleton, as well as the bulk of the repertory of the newly-established children s companies at Blackfriars and Paul s. The playwrights self-consciously forged a new genre which attracted London audiences with its images of folly and vice in Court and City, and hack-writing dramatists were prompt to cash in on a new theatrical fashion.

This study, first published in 1980, examines ways in which the Jacobean city comedy...