Four Jacobean City Plays

by John Marston, Ben Jonson, Thomas Middleton

432 pages, Paperback

First published February 3, 1987

About the author

John Marston was an English poet, playwright and satirist during the late Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. His career as a writer lasted a decade, and his work is remembered for its energetic and often obscure style, its contributions to the development of a distinctively Jacobean style in poetry, and its idiosyncratic vocabulary.

Reviews

[Nullifidian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, a worthy collection of early modern plays. The best two plays were, IMO, A New Way to Pay Old Debts by Philip Massinger and A Mad World, My Masters by Thomas Middleton. The Devil is an Ass wasn't bad, but didn't hit the comedic heights that Jonson reached with Volpone, Epicoene, The Alchemist, Bartholomew Fair, and the revised English version of Every Man in His Humour. The Dutch Courtesan was not up to the same level as the other three. The only things that were amusing about it were the cony-catching tricks of Cocledemoy, but it was otherwise a complete slog.

[Bill FromPA]

The Dutch Courtesan 11/19
A Mad World, My Masters 12/4-5
The Devil Is an Ass 4/26-27

[Steve Clark]

Paperback