Full Description
First, complete, integrated corpus of this major Elizabethan writer and first critical edition of his collected works in over one hundred years, with major new discoveries of authorship and attribution.
Thomas Kyd (1558-94) is best known as author of The Spanish Tragedy, the first revenge play, hugely influential on Shakespeare and other dramatists. He also wrote another love tragedy, Soliman and Perseda, and Cornelia, a classical tragedy translated from the French. This is a small canon for a dramatist described as "industrious". Kyd worked between 1585 and 1594, when the instability in the London theatre caused by the plague led to companies breaking up and plays being published anonymously. For over a century scholars have been searching for Kyd plays, the most frequently attributed being Arden of Faversham.
Uniting accepted methods with modern electronic data processing, Brian Vickers has endorsed Kyd's authorship of Arden and added two other plays: King Leir, Shakespeare's main source, and Fair Em, a comedy - justifying Jonson's reference to "sporting Kyd". His research has also identified Kyd as co-author with Nashe of 'harey the vi', which became 1 Henry VI after Shakespeare adapted it to his "Wars of the Roses" sequence. The evidence suggests that Kyd and Shakespeare co-authored Edward III.
The Collected Works of Thomas Kyd brings together for the first time his dramas, poetry, translations, and letters in accurate modernized editions, each text edited by one of a team of internationally renowned scholars, accompanied by commentaries, collation notes, and introductions. Kyd emerges as a pioneering playwright of much greater generic range than has been hitherto recognized. His newly defined canon will stimulate a fresh evaluation of English drama in this crucial period.
This two volume set presents all the extant writings attributed to Kyd by Sir Brian Vickers, supported by Darren Freebury-Jones and the contributors to this ambitious, landmark project.
Contents
Volume One
Kyd and the London Theatre, Brian Vickers
Recognizing Kyd, Brian Vickers
Verses of Praise and Joy (1586), ed. Daniel Starza Smith
Introduction
Text
Textual Notes
Commentary
The Spanish Tragedy (1585-7), ed. Brian Vickers
Introduction
The Persons in the Play
Text
Textual Notes
Commentary
The Householder's Philosophy (1588), ed. Domenico Lovascio
Introduction
Text
Textual Notes
Commentary
Soliman and Perseda (1588), ed. Matthew Dimmock
Introduction
The Persons in the Play
Text
Textual Notes
Commentary
King Leir (1589), ed. Eugene Giddens
Introduction
The Persons in the Play
Text with Authorship Commentary by Darren Freebury-Jones as Footnotes
Textual Notes
Commentary
Volume Two
Arden of Faversham (1590), ed. Darren Freebury-Jones
Introduction
The Persons in the Play
Text with Authorship Commentary as Footnotes
Textual Notes
Commentary
Fair Em (1590), ed. Brian Vickers
Introduction
The Persons in the Play
Text with Authorship Commentary by Darren Freebury-Jones as Footnotes
Textual Notes
Commentary
I Henry VI (1592), ed. David Bevington and Brian Vickers
Introduction by Brian Vickers
The Persons in the Play
Text with Authorship Commentary as Footnotes
Textual Notes
Commentary
Edward III (1593), ed. David Bevington and Brian Vickers
Introduction by Brian Vickers
The Persons in the Play
Text with Authorship Commentary as Footnotes
Textual Notes
Commentary
Letters to Sir John Puckering (1593), ed. Rebekah Owens and Daniel Starza Smith
Introduction
Text
Textual Notes
Commentary
Cornelia (1594), ed. Adam Horsley and Lucy Rayfield
Introduction by Adam Horsley
The Persons in the Play
Text
Textual Notes
Commentary
