Two Moral Interludes: 152 (Malone Society Reprints S.) - Tapa dura

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This is an edition of two sixteenth-century interludes. The first, Witty and Witless , which was written by John Heywood, survives in only one manuscript, in the British Library. The text, of around 800 lines, is not in Heywood's hand, but the scribe attributes the play to him at the end of the manuscript. Witty and Witless was intended for performance before Henry VIII, and perhaps dates from soon after 1525 when the King's new jester, Will Somer, arrived at court. It shows the influence of the humanists, especially More and Erasmus. The Malone edition is a typefacsimile, near-diplomatic text, with the customary scholarly apparatus. The other interlude is Ulpian Fulwell's Like Will to Like . This may have been written shortly before it was published, in a quarto edition printed by John Allde in 1568. Two further quartos (one undated, the other 1587) were produced by Allde, but these appear to be reprints, with sophistications and errors which derive from the printing house. The Malone Society edition is a full-size photofacsimile of the first quarto, prepared from photographs of the unique copy in the Bodleian Library. In the textual notes there is a record of significant variations between the first quarto and the others, and a list of readings which reconstruct parts of the text lost or damaged in the Bodleian copy. Each play is supplied with an introduction, in which there is a discussion of the text, and a brief outline of historical and literary issues. This book is intended for scholars and graduate students of Renaissance drama, textual and bibliographical problems, and social history.