John Marston: 7 books

As the Elizabethan era gave way to the reign of James I, England grappled with corruption within the royal court and widespread religious anxiety. Dramatists responded with morally complex plays of dark wit and violent spectacle, exploring the nature of death, the abuse of power and vigilante justice....

"This Malevole is one of the most prodigious affections that ever conversed with nature: a man, or rather a monster, more discontent than Lucifer." The Malcontent is a striking example of the new satiric tone and moral seriousness in English comedy of the early 1600s. The play's vision...

The Dutch Courtesan is a riotous tragicomedy that explores the delights and perils afforded by Jacobean London. While Freevill, an educated young Englishman and the play's nominal hero, frolics in the city's streets, taverns and brothels, Franceschina, his cast-off mistress and the Dutch courtesan...

A student edition of Marston's classic play The Malcontent is a tragicomedy deriving from the tradition of the revenge play. The verbal ingenuity of Malevole, the "malcontent", and the extravagance of the drama, push the relentlessness of intrigue to its logical conclusion, exposing...

This book introduces contemporary Buddhists from across Asia and from various walks of life. Eschewing traditional hagiographies, the editors have collected sixty-six profiles of individuals who would be excluded from most Buddhist histories and ethnographies. In addition to monks and nuns, readers...

This collaborative masterpiece of hilarious city comedy was performed by the Children of the Revels at the Blackfriars playhouse in 1605. The story is of an allegorical simplicity that lends itself to satire of civic mores and traditions as well as to parody of the sentimental, idealising London comedy...

Although it was written shortly before or after Queen Elizabeth's death in 1603 and performed by the boy company at Blackfriars, this play foreshadows the light ladies and callous gallants of Restoration comedy. Passion is a scourge, love is humiliation, and friends might as well be enemies. Freevill...