Jill P. Ingram is associate professor of English at Ohio University. She is the editor of the New Kittredge edition of Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost and author of Idioms of Self-Interest: Credit, Identity, and Property in English Renaissance Literature.

Indeed, as an innovative, deeply detailed study of Renaissance drama's interrelation with pre-commercial economic practices, Festive Enterprise deserves much applause: it reveals the humanity and sense of community in the rise of theatrical commercialism. —Journal of British Studies"The virtue of Festive Enterprise is to situate famous plays from the era in a detailed historical context that helps to illuminate the achievement of Shakespeare and some of his better-known contemporaries. It's a solid and significant contribution to the scholarship of medieval and Renaissance drama in England." —Paul A. Cantor, author of Shakespeare's Roman Trilogy"Economically and precisely expressed, packed full of detail and useful information, and consistently lively and entertaining." —The English Historical Review

• Introduction1. The Festive Gatherer and the Empathetic Thief: The Genealogy of a Character2. Forms of Investment: Mummings, Prologues and Epilogues3. Reconciliation in The Winter's Tale: Devotion and Commerce from Guilds to Church Ales4. The Mobile Entertainer: John Taylor's Penniless Pilgrimage5. Coding Complaint in Gesta Grayorum and The Christmas Prince6. "A Jest's Prosperity": The Market, Marprelate, and Love's Labour's LostConclusion

Jill P. Ingram is associate professor of English at Ohio University. She is the editor of the New Kittredge edition of Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost and author of Idioms of Self-Interest: Credit, Identity, and Property in English Renaissance Literature.

Indeed, as an innovative, deeply detailed study of Renaissance drama's interrelation with pre-commercial economic practices, Festive Enterprise deserves much applause: it reveals the humanity and sense of community in the rise of theatrical commercialism. —Journal of British Studies"The virtue of Festive Enterprise is to situate famous plays from the era in a detailed historical context that helps to illuminate the achievement of Shakespeare and some of his better-known contemporaries. It's a solid and significant contribution to the scholarship of medieval and Renaissance drama in England." —Paul A. Cantor, author of Shakespeare's Roman Trilogy"Economically and precisely expressed, packed full of detail and useful information, and consistently lively and entertaining." —The English Historical Review

• Introduction1. The Festive Gatherer and the Empathetic Thief: The Genealogy of a Character2. Forms of Investment: Mummings, Prologues and Epilogues3. Reconciliation in The Winter's Tale: Devotion and Commerce from Guilds to Church Ales4. The Mobile Entertainer: John Taylor's Penniless Pilgrimage5. Coding Complaint in Gesta Grayorum and The Christmas Prince6. "A Jest's Prosperity": The Market, Marprelate, and Love's Labour's LostConclusion

Jill P. Ingram is associate professor of English at Ohio University. She is the editor of the New Kittredge edition of Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost and author of Idioms of Self-Interest: Credit, Identity, and Property in English Renaissance Literature.

Indeed, as an innovative, deeply detailed study of Renaissance drama's interrelation with pre-commercial economic practices, Festive Enterprise deserves much applause: it reveals the humanity and sense of community in the rise of theatrical commercialism. —Journal of British Studies"The virtue of Festive Enterprise is to situate famous plays from the era in a detailed historical context that helps to illuminate the achievement of Shakespeare and some of his better-known contemporaries. It's a solid and significant contribution to the scholarship of medieval and Renaissance drama in England." —Paul A. Cantor, author of Shakespeare's Roman Trilogy"Economically and precisely expressed, packed full of detail and useful information, and consistently lively and entertaining." —The English Historical Review

• Introduction1. The Festive Gatherer and the Empathetic Thief: The Genealogy of a Character2. Forms of Investment: Mummings, Prologues and Epilogues3. Reconciliation in The Winter's Tale: Devotion and Commerce from Guilds to Church Ales4. The Mobile Entertainer: John Taylor's Penniless Pilgrimage5. Coding Complaint in Gesta Grayorum and The Christmas Prince6. "A Jest's Prosperity": The Market, Marprelate, and Love's Labour's LostConclusion