Description: This fully annotated and modernized collection of plays--including Every Man in his Humour, Sejanus, Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair--represents the full range and complexity of Jonson's art as a playwright.
Customer Reviews
Review Summary: Not Appropriate for Undergraduate Classrooms
Date: 2007-11-11
Details: The advantages of this collection are the number of plays it includes and its low price. Its grave disadvantage is the notes, which are insufficient for undergraduate classrooms, at least in the U.S. They're hit-or-miss. Sometimes they give you information you really do need, but they leave gaps. For instance, readers apparently should not need to be told that one of the meanings of "motion" in the seventeenth century is "puppet show." (See Volpone V.iv.77, on p. 332.) I used this edition to teach Volpone and Bartholomew Fair in a class of undergraduate English majors at a highly selective university in the fall of 2007. The unexplained vocabulary created a barrier for the students (and for me, frankly), and I ended up relying on the Norton edition edited by Richard Harp to fill in the gaps in our comprehension. I wish I had ordered that edition for the course instead; although it doesn't offer as many plays, it does also include three masques.
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