Bryan Loughrey – författare

Thomas Middleton (1580-1627) was one of the most prolific and fascinating playwrights of the Jacobean era, producing nearly fifty theatrical pieces in a quarter of a century. This collection comprises five of his most powerful plays, from the comedies satirizing city life, A Trick to Catch the Old One, and A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, to his later tragedies Women Beware Women and The Changeling, in which Middleton reveals a world dominated by the corrupting power of lust and subject to the futility of human pretensions. Also included is The Revenger's Tragedy, originally ascribed to Cyril Tourneur, a Revenge Play infused with sardonic wit and biting irony.

The tale of Peachum, thief-taker and informer, conspiring to send the dashing and promiscuous highwayman Macheath to the gallows, became the theatrical sensation of the eighteenth century.In THE BEGGAR'S OPERA, John Gay turned conventions of Italian opera riotously upside-down, instead using traditional popular ballads and street tunes, while also indulging in political satire at the expense of the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole. Gay's highly original depiction of the thieves, informers, prostitutes and highwaymen thronging the slums and prisons of the corrupt London underworld proved brilliantly successful in exposing the dark side of a corrupt and jaded society.

The first in a series on Shakespeare's original texts, including facsimile pages, this version of "Hamlet" is claimed to be, in some ways, the most authentic version of the play that we have. Included are an introduction, notes, and a theoretical, historical and contextual critique.

One of a series on Shakespeare's original texts, including facsimile pages, this version of "Henry V" is claimed to be, in some ways, the most authentic version of the play that we have. Included are an introduction, notes, and a theoretical, historical and contextual critique.

One in a series on Shakespeare's original texts, including facsimile pages, this version of "The Taming of a Shrew" is claimed to be, in some ways, the most authentic version of the play that we have. Included are an introduction, notes, and a theoretical, historical and contextual critique.

One of a series on Shakespeare's original texts, including facsimile pages, this version of "Henry V" is claimed to be, in some ways, the most authentic version of the play that we have. Included are an introduction, notes, and a theoretical, historical and contextual critique. The original text - or First Quarto - of "Henry V", published in 1600, is missing the Chorus, a dramatic device which recent criticism has used to suggest a strikingly modern view of history and politics. These and other significant changes mean that critics can no longer assume that the play presents a distanced, ironic perspective on its own political and military action. If Elizabethan audiences saw in performance something closer to the First Folio than the 1623 Folio text, then their dramatic engagement with history was of a kind very different from that of the play's 20th-century interpreters. This new edition makes available the original text of "Henry V", in all its theatrical simplicity and historical difference.