Thomas Middleton (1580-1627)
This website grew out of my desire to have the plays of Thomas Middleton in one collection, personally edited and available on word processor. Having done that, I thought it worthwhile to take the next step and bring Middleton to the Web. One inspiration was seeing what a convenient resource there is in a Complete Online Shakespeare, which I used--along with the OED, a Bible search engine, and other resources, electronic and hard-print--to edit these plays.
In editing, I've consulted quarto facsimiles and critical editions when and where available, and I've hypertexted significant textual decisions, along with glossed words and phrases; so while these editions are not refereed, a good deal of care has been taken in their preparation. The primary reason for these plays being here is the same as for my gathering them together for myself--to be enjoyed. At the end of the project I plan to put each play's textual apparatus online, as well provide a separate and central database for glossary items.
If you just happened to surf to this site, would like a quick overview of Middleton's life and have subscribed to Encyclopedia Britannica, click here.
The following selection is not complete, but plays will be added regularly. If the image above the play's title is "hot," the play's online.
Finally, there is the issue of what constitutes the Middleton canon. I've divided the plays into three groups: Sole Authorship, Collaboration, and Questionable Attribution; I base this grouping on the hypotheses of Middleton scholars as well as my own research and impressions.
Sole Authorship
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The |
Michaelmas
Term |
A Mad World, My
Masters |
A Trick to Catch
the Old One |
The Puritan |
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The Revenger's Tragedy |
Your Five
Gallants |
[The Second
Maiden's Tragedy] |
No Wit, No Help
like a Woman's |
A Chaste Maid in
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The Witch |
More Dissemblers |
The Widow |
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Hengist,
King of |
Women Beware
Women |
A Game at Chess |
Collaborations
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The Family of
Love |
The Honest
Whore, Part I |
A |
The Roaring Girl
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Wit at Several
Weapons |
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The Nice Valour |
A Fair Quarrel |
The Old Law |
Anything for a
Quiet Life |
The Changeling |
Questionable Attribution
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The Bloody
Banquet |
Blurt, Master
Constable |
Timon
of |
The Spanish
Gypsy |
Some Collaborators and Rivals
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I'd like to add the images of other Elizabethan/Jacobean dramatists: if you can provide me leads, I'd be grateful.
Some Secondary Resources (other links on my homepage):
Anniina Jokinen's page on Middleton
Internet
Shakespeare Editions
"The Triumphes of Golde:
Economic Authority in the Jacobean Lord Mayor's Show" by Sergei Lobanov-Rostovsky in ELH.
Click here.
"'For Show Or Useless Property': Necrophilia and The
Revenger's Tragedy" by Karin S. Coddon in ELH. Click here. (Some
ELH articles require subscription.)
"Middleton's 'City Comedies' and the Influence of the
Boy Theatres" by John Oughton,
Click here for George
Silver's Paradoxes of Defence (1599), a
pamphlet on weaponry, put online by Greg Lindahl.
Click here for
relevant pages from Braun and Schneider's The History of Costume.
The Gunpowder
Plot Pages
The Elizabethan Review
The Changeling on film: 1994 (dir. Simon
Curtis, st. Bob Hoskins, Hugh Grant), 1998 (dir. Marcus Thompson,
United Independent Pictures Ltd.) .
The Changeling at the Knightsbridge
Theatre in Pasadena,
If you have any suggestions or comments, please let me know. (Thank you to all who have written me so far.) I hope you enjoy Middleton's plays as much as I do.
And, after Wolf, a dozen of his like
Proved there was never any Troy at all,
Neither Besiegers nor Besieged,--nay, worse,--
No actual Homer, no authentic text,
No warrant for the fiction I, as fact,
Had treasured in my heart and soul so long--
Ay, mark you! and as fact held still, still hold,
Spite of new knowledge, in my heart of hearts
And soul of souls, fact's essence freed and fixed
From accidental fancy's guardian sheath.
Robert Browning, "Development"
Chris Cleary
Visitors since June 19, 1998: .
http://www.tech.org/~cleary/middhome.html
Last modified: December 17, 2000
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