A King and No King - Revels Plays Annotated by Lee Bliss Paperback

About the Book

This fully annotated version makes available on one of the most popular and influential plays by Beaumont and Fletcher, young contemporaries of Shakespeare. In discussing sources and stage history, the critical introduction challenges the common modern devaluation of these playwrights and offers a fresh, historically informed interpretation.

From the Back Cover

A popular and influential play from its first performance in 1611 until the early eighteenth century, 'A King and No King' helped establish tragicomedy as the seventeenth century's favoured dramatic genre, and Beaumont and Fletcher as leading playwrights of the day.

Accompanying this newly edited text, an introduction explores the play's sources, both literary and dramatic, and offers a thorough reconsideration of its relation to its social and political context, and contemporary issues of royal absolutism, good governance, and the political role of the aristocracy. In addition, the introduction provides the fullest available account of 'A King and No King''s stage history, tracing the shifts in cultural mores that eroded its popularity and ultimately consigned it to the study rather than the stage. This fully annotated edition encourages an appreciation of the play's very real virtues and will appeal to theatre professionals as well as to students of Renaissance drama.

Review Quotes

"Bliss provides the play with much needed breathing space in her fine introduction... Lee Bliss and the Manchester University Press have produced an edition of a fascinating play to the Revels Play's usual high standards" --Elliott Kendall, "TLS "

About the Author

Lee Bliss is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara