The First and Second Parts of King Edward Iv - Thomas Heywood (Paperback)

Edward IV (1599) was printed no less than six times up to 1626, and was one of the best loved plays of the early modern period, but this edition is the first since the 1870s. Controversy surrounds every aspect of the play. Disputes over the ownership of the inn-yard playhouse in which it was first played erupted into violence during performances. The little known troop which first acted Edward IV used it to challenge the domination of the two principal companies. The play premiered at a moment when the representation of medieval history in any format was coming under the hostile scrutiny of the Elizabethan government. Yet the playwright produced a text which was at once generically complex (the play blurs the distinction between chronicle history and 'domestic' tragedy), brilliantly assured in its dramatic craftsmanship, and politically explosive. The play depicts the streets and houses in which its original spectators lived and worked with a precision unprecedented in English writing. But this vividly realised London is under assault, first from rebels outside its walls, and subsequently (and more seriously) from the predations of two monarchs. The text of this edition has already been used by the actors at Shakespeare's Globe when they gave the first London performance of Edward IV for more than four centuries. By demonstrating the playwright's dextrous marshalling of a remarkable range of sources, and by examining afresh the dramatist's singular theatrical technique, this volume opens up an exciting if difficult play to a new generation of scholars and performers.