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This edition brings together Jonson's four great comedies Volpone, Epicene, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair. The texts of these plays are presented with modernized spelling. Stage directions have been added to help actors and directors reconstruct the play the way it would ha...
The Alchemist is a comedy by English playwright Ben Jonson. First performed in 1610 by the King's Men, it is generally considered Jonson's best and most characteristic comedy; Samuel Taylor Coleridge considered it had one of the three most perfect plots in literature.
In this uproarious satire from Jacobean playwright Ben Jonson, the clever Venetian gentleman Volpone hatches an outrageous scheme to dupe a greedy trio of hangers-on who are after his fortune. A ragtag cast of characters, including a dwarf, a eunuch, and a hermaphrodite, get caug...
This tragic masterpiece by English playwright Ben Jonson explores the life of Roman soldier Lucius Aelius Seianus, who was a close friend and confidant of the emperor TIberius. After a public performance of the play at the Globe theater, Jonson was accused of treason, as some bel...
In the late sixteenth century, English playwright Ben Jonson revitalized an ancient style of comedic theater known as "comedy of humours." Drawing on the theory that each person has a particular trait - or "humour" - that defines their personality and perspective, Every Man in H...
Samuel Taylor Coleridge said of Ben Jonson's The Alchemist that it had one out of the three most perfect plots in literature. This play, with its sharp portrayal of human folly, is considered by many to be Jonson's best comedy. First performed 1610, its popularity has endured t...
In this Renaissance comedy, a marriage that was entered into for all the wrong reasons goes hilariously astray. The grumpy curmudgeon Morose chooses his wife solely on the basis of how quiet he perceives her to be, as he detests brashness, loud noise, and revelry of all kinds. Bu...
This satirical drama from one of the only playwrights regarded as a contemporary equal of Shakespeare may have originally been performed in the early 1600s, but it feels remarkably fresh centuries later. Beginning with a prologue which devolves into a slapstick comedy that presag...
The Alchemist is a comedy by English playwright Ben Jonson. First performed in 1610 by the King's Men, it is generally considered Jonson's best and most characteristic comedy; Samuel Taylor Coleridge claimed that it had one of the three most perfect plots in literature. The play'...